More Than a Third of Americans Would Consider Third-Party Candidate

— -- Fifty-seven percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the choice between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll earlier this month. But, can third-party presidential candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson turn that dissatisfaction into votes this November?

Asked how they would vote in a four-way race including Johnson and Stein, respondents to the ABC News/Washington Post poll released Aug. 7 gave Hillary Clinton an eight-point lead over Trump, 45 percent to 37 percent, with Johnson at 8 percent, and Stein at 4 percent.

Now, together with ABC News’ partners at SSRS survey research firm, we asked in an online poll of randomly chosen respondents if they are considering voting for a third-party candidate: 35 percent said yes.

Asked how worried they are, if at all, that votes for a third-party candidate could cause their least preferred candidate to win the presidency, 59 percent said they are worried: 35 percent somewhat worried, 15 percent very worried, and 9 percent extremely worried.

In addition to Johnson and Stein, respondents identified possible write-in candidates including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The ABC News/SSRS Poll was conducted using the SSRS Probability Panel. Interviews were conducted online overnight from August 18 – August 19, 2016 among a nationally representative sample of 231 respondents age 18 and older. The margin of error for total respondents is +/-8.1% at the 95% confidence level. The SSRS Probability Panel is a probability-based, online panel of adults recruited from random digit dialed landline and cell phone numbers. For more information, visit http://ssrs.com/research/ssrs-probability-panel/.