Michigan's Justin Amash wants to be president. He faces super long odds.

LANSING — Michigan U.S. Rep. Justin Amash is exploring a run for president and says he’s “confident” he can win the White House if he secures the Libertarian Party nomination.

But experts say the former Republican from suburban Grand Rapids, who left the GOP last year after backing calls to impeach President Donald Trump, faces almost insurmountable odds as he looks to upend a two-party system he has criticized as ineffective and unresponsive.

Over the past five decades, only two independent or third-party presidential candidates have won at least 10 percent of the vote in Michigan. None has topped 20 percent or won any electoral votes from the winner-take-all state. 

Rather than winning, experts say Amash could play swing state spoiler to Trump or, perhaps more likely, presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden. 

“I do not think a third-party candidate could win Michigan,” longtime pollster Richard Czuba told Bridge Magazine on Wednesday morning.  “It would require immense resources, which I have never seen a Libertarian have. Can you make a dent in key states? Absolutely, but it’s still unclear what that dent is going to be, and if it splinters the anti-Trump vote, then it may well help Trump make the race more competitive in key states.”

Amash on Tuesday announced he’s formed a presidential campaign committee, calling it an “exploratory” step to pursue the Libertarian Party nomination.

“Americans are ready for practical approaches based in humility and trust of the people,” he said in a statement. “We’re ready for a presidency that will restore respect for our Constitution and bring people together. I’m excited and honored to be taking these first steps toward serving Americans of every background as president.”  

Four years ago, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson won 3.5 percent of the statewide vote in Michigan after the conservative editorial board of The Detroit News endorsed him over Trump, who won the state by 10,709 votes — a less than 1 percent margin — over Democrat Hillary Clinton. 

Johnson also won about 3 percent of the national popular vote, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein won 1 percent of the vote in Michigan and across the country.

It was the strongest year for third-party candidates since 1996, when businessman Ross Perot won 9 percent of the vote in Michigan as the nominee of the newly formed Reform Party.

Johnson and Stein combined to get less than 5 percent of the popular vote in 2016, which was “a high water mark for third-party success, and it’s going to be very hard to top that,” said Matt Grossman, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research and a political science professor at Michigan State University.

“In 2018 we saw big declines in third-party support for congressional races, and that’s sort of typical after a close election when third-party supporters regret not supporting their favorite major party.”

Amash has railed against the two-party system that experts say may hold him back. 

It’s “causing our country a lot of problems,” he told constituents last fall during a coffee shop stop in Grand Rapids. “People don’t listen to each other anymore. They take sides and they hold to that position regardless of what common sense or logic tells them.”

But no third-party candidate has ever won the presidency since the modern two-party system solidified in the United States.

Wallace captured 331,968 votes in Michigan and 9.9 million votes overall, winning five southern states but finished a distant third to Republican winner Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. He remains the last third-party candidate to receive pledged electoral college votes for the presidency. 

In 1992, Perot won 19 percent of the vote in Michigan and nationwide running as a political independent. The 824,813 votes he received in Michigan is a modern record for a non-major party candidate but left him in third place behind Democratic winner Bill Clinton and Republican George H.W. Bush.

The list of other notable third-party or independent presidential candidate performances in Michigan this century is short: Green Party nominee Jill Stein won 1.07 percent of the vote in 2016, and Ralph Nader won 2 percent of the vote as the Green Party nominee in 2000.

The United States has “the least number of effective political parties in the world,” and there is evidence that many Americans support the concept of a more diverse system, Grossman said. 

But “most people have already made a decision between the two major parties, and partisanship is going up,” he said.  

Amash began flirting with a presidential run last year, and June 2019 polling by Czuba’s Glengariff Group Inc. tested a hypothetical matchup between Trump, Biden and Amash in Michigan.

Amash polled at 10 percent in his home state, trailing Biden at 45 percent and Trump at 39 percent. Biden’s lead was larger when Amash was not on the ticket, suggesting his third-party bid could hurt the Democratic nominee. 

“What we found at the time was that particularly independent men — and the only way to refer to them is as politically homeless men — would typically go for Biden, but when they were given an alternative … moved to Amash,” Czuba said. 

“So what, if anything, we were seeing is that when it’s Trump vs. Biden, everyone who’s anti-Trump was consolidated. Amash is now viewed … as anti-Trump, so it splinters that anti-Trump vote just a little bit.”

There is some evidence that third-party candidates perform better in their home states. Johnson, for instance, got 9 percent of the vote last cycle in New Mexico, where he served as governor from 1995 through 2002, besting his national performance of 3 percent.

But Michigan could emerge as a “key focal point” for Amash regardless, Czuba said. That’s because if he wins the Libertarian Party nomination, he would automatically make the ballot here. 

In other swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, third-party candidates need to gather signatures to make the ballot, “and it’s nearly impossible to gather signatures right now” because of the coronavirus pandemic, Czuba noted. 

Amash’s presidential bid also reshapes the 3rd Congressional District race, where he has "paused" his re-election campaign. 

His previous decisions to leave the GOP and call for Trump’s impeachment inspired a slew of Republican candidates to jump in the race, and they now no longer have the incumbent congressman as a foil for their own campaigns. 

Five Republicans have turned in signatures to make the August primary ballot, including Peter Meijer, who has the support of the powerful DeVos family, and state Rep. Lynn Afendoulis. 

Democrat Hillary Scholten, an immigration attorney, is considered a strong candidate in an evolving district that has traditionally been a Republican stronghold. 

“In a three-way race, I think the Democratic candidate really stood an interesting possibility of pulling an upset here,” Czuba said. “I think that comes a little bit harder in a head-to-head.”