Former President Donald Trump’s win over Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election has had many individuals question how third-party candidates may have impacted the overall results — especially in swing states like Wisconsin, according to BU Today.

Third-party candidates like Jill Stein, Chase Oliver and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who drew a small percentage of votes in the polls — were still a possible deciding factor in who won the election, according to the Washington Times.

In the most recent presidential election, third-party candidates played a smaller role than many experts had originally anticipated, College Republicans of UW-Madison Chair Thomas Pyle said.

“In the primary cycles seen earlier in the election race, we saw a lot of people who were not particularly fond of Trump or Biden, and there was not a huge change once Kamala Harris became a part of the race,” Pyle said.

But, in regards to how the U.S. Senate race went, GOP candidate Eric Hovde lost by a narrow margin, and though there are still potential recounts to come, this result was most likely because of the large number of libertarian third-party candidates on the ballot, Pyle said.

Compared to presidential election results from previous years such as the 2016 election, third-parties had little impact on the results of this election, but students should still research the major party candidates, UW Eau Claire College Democrats Chair Matthew Lehner said.

“I don’t think that voting for these third-party candidates would change the outcome of the election,” Lehner said. “[But,] it speaks to the work that we did in educating voters on the fact that … a vote for anybody else [other than Harris] is a vote for Donald Trump.”

While some people consider third-party candidates to be a wasted vote, others believe they contribute to aspects of a healthy democracy, according to BU Today.

It depends on what one believes the purpose of a vote generally means, whether thinking it’s only to decide who is going to win and take elective office, then it could be considered a wasted vote, according to BU Today.

But, a third-party vote can also be a way for citizens to make statements about how they feel about the political system or if they are unhappy with the major party candidates’ views, according to BU Today.

Pyle said it is normal for voters to disagree with major party candidates.

“I think it is absolutely healthy,” Pyle said. “Just having one or two opinions is not enough and is not what our country stands for for our critical use, so third parties are extremely necessary and important in these elections.”

Everyone is allowed the opportunity to campaign for office under whichever party they choose, Lehner said.

Voting for a third-party candidate would not be considered a wasted vote, but in the instance of the 2024 presidential election, it was considered a vote for Trump in the eyes of many Democrats, Lehner said.

The system that the U.S. political electoral system has set is that only Republicans or Democrats have a chance of winning the presidency, Lehner said.

College Democrats encouraged voters who did not want Trump in office to set aside their differences with Harris and vote for her instead because she was the only other candidate with the best chance of winning over Trump, Lehner said.

Experts advise voters to keep track of Wisconsin and the other six swing states’ votes because they are considered a determining factor of the overall results, according to USA Today.

Pyle said third parties did not affect Harris’ chances of winning in swing states.

“I do not believe that Kamala Harris lost the swing states as a result of third parties’ impacts, but due to her overall unlikability and her campaign,” Pyle said.

Pyle said both candidates prioritized student votes in this election, but a majority of University of Wisconsin students were undecided with their voting choices this year.

As a result of the frustrations with both the Democratic and Republican parties, and how politically divisive these can be, students were more open to voting for third-party candidates now more than ever, Lehner said.

Students want to vote for candidates representing their values, and they may have felt that a third-party candidate like Green Party candidate Stein or anybody else running is more aligned with their progressive values, Lehner said.

“It is completely understandable, but a vote for them [third-party candidates] is a vote to elect Donald Trump,” Lehner said.