Incumbent President Donald Trump vs. former Vice President Joe Biden.
Biden, who has a higher favorability than Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but has a net favorability of -0.7, and is slightly less unpopular than Donald Trump. Polls are imperfect, but they can give a hint as to how things *may* go.
As soon as Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out, he effectively conceded the nomination to Joe Biden.
Afterwards, a number of Sanders' supporters made it clear that they would not back Joe Biden, just like they had done with Hillary Clinton in 2016.
A number of people have argued (and still continue to argue) that doing so will lead to Donald Trump being re-elected.
A few key points of understanding:
-The whole point of running for public office is to take votes away from other candidates. The goal the Democrats have is to take votes away from the Republicans, and vice versa. Third party, independent, or write in candidates hope to take votes away from both parties. This has led many to claim that it cost Al Gore the 2000 Presidential election, and Hillary Clinton the 2016 Presidential election.
-Candidates who want to win must earn the votes of the people. Al Gore was unable to hold on to his base, and he even lost his homestate to George W. Bush by over 80,000 votes. Hillary Clinton lost by razor thin margins in the rust belt where an economic populist message proved to be more effective than her own. She failed to convince enough people to back her cause, just like Al Gore, to form a winning coalition.
-The spoiler argument assumes that if the third party canddiates weren't in the race, that the losing candidate would have won, rather than those voters staying home. In Florida (2000), every candidate had more than 537 votes (the margin Bush won over Gore), and could be accused of playing a spoiler role, despite the fact they haven't been accused of doing so. The controversy of Elian Gonzalez did hurt the Clinton Administration, and the Gore Lieberman ticket, with the Hispanic vote, which is an important voting bloc in Florida. Keep in mind, Gore lost the white female vote in Florida, a group that normally backed Democrats... ended up giving a slim majority of their votes to Bush. 20,000+ Democrats voted for Nader, but that's peanuts compared to the hundreds of thousands of Democrats who voted for Bush. And it's hard for those who argue that a third party candidate to prove that a losing candidate would be able to pull enough votes from the third party candidate (if they weren't in the race) to win.
In Pennsylvania (2016), a state won by Donald Trump by 44,292, or 0.72%, with Green candidate Jill Stein, recieving 49,941, or 0.81%. Hillary Clinton would need over 88% of Stein's votes, just to close the deficit, and force a tie. This assumes that Trump couldn't have picked up votes from Stein, or Stein's voters would have just boycotted the election. Gary Johnson received just 146,715, or 2.38%. Even if Johnson's voters backed Clinton (she would need just 30.18% of them), it's still her fault for not earning their votes.
In Michigan, a state won by Donald Trump, by just 10,704, or 0.23%, showed Johnson with over 100,000 votes, at 3.59%, and Stein with 50,000 votes, at 1.07%. Both candidates have enough votes to close the gap, but so does Constitution Party candidate Darrell Bradley, with 16,000, or 0.33%.
In Wisconsin, a state won by Donald Trump by 22,748, or 0.77%, showed Johnosn and Stein with a combined total of 137,000, or 4.62%, and the same point I made can apply here: It's unlikely that Clinton, with a long history of supporting free trade, was going to appeal to blue collar workers, and economic protectionists. Darrell Bradley, and independent candidate Evan McMullin, have a combined total of 24,000, or 0.81%.
In the end, both any number of candidates could be blamed for Hillary Clinton failing to build a winning coalition, to win the electoral college. Blaming a third party candidate for existing doesn't change the fact that the runner up had failed to earn support.
Joe Biden must earn the support of Sanders voters. He cannot afford to expect their support in November. Or else? Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term, at noon, 01/21/2021.
Here are other sources (or other opinion pieces) for you to look at:
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-nader-spoilers-20160612-snap-story.html
https://www.salon.com/control/2000/11/28/hightower/
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/faculty/lewis/pdf/greenreform9.pdf
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/05/31/nader_elected_bush_why_we_shouldnt_forget_130715.html
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=119958
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/05/why-u-s-elections-are-all-about-voting-against-something-and-not-for-it/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/12/6/1260721/-The-Nader-Myth
https://transition.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
http://www.timwise.org/2000/11/no-more-mister-fall-guy-why-ralph-nader-is-not-to-blame-for-president-bush/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ralph-nader-was-indispens_b_4235065
http://www.amarkfoundation.org/pdf/ralph-nader-potential-impact-2000-election-mar-17.pdf
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