Containing the Third

Third-party candidates in the United States routinely see a decline in support in the final weeks of presidential campaigns. While political scientists attribute this partially to Duverger’s Law, many communication scholars have tied this collapse to media coverage that frames third-party candidates as fringe outsiders, longshots, and spoilers. This study extends these explanations of third-party failure by describing the rhetorical containment of third-party voters. Based on a case study of the 2016 presidential election and public debate about supporters of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, the essay suggests such voters face a form of marginalization that portrays them as intruders in a two-party race, as immature and uninformed, and responsible for eventual victors, while presenting them a false choice of winning by sacrificing their cause