Even so how can anyone assume that those people that voted Libertarian would have voted Republican? they could just as easily voted Dem, for all you know the Libertarian candidate could have taken more votes from the Dem than the Rep. There is a poll out there somewhere that asked people that voted 3rd party if there were only 2 choices how would you have voted and the results came back split about the same as the regular election results so the 3rd party voters take votes from both the left and right. Not sure why everyone always assumes that they steal only from the right. I'm sure every time a Rep wins some Dem is sitting at home bitching how the 3rd party guy stole votes from his side of the vote.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/06/re...your-candidate
Here's an article that speaks of an exit poll of people that voted Sarvis.. If they had not voted Sarvis they would have voted McAuliffe at a 2 to 1 margin so Cucinelli still would have lost.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/06/do...cuccinelli-los
But to blame a major-party loss on third-party candidates is fundamentally mistaken. First off, it ignores data that the Libertarian pulled more votes from the Democratic candidate than he did from the Republican one—an exit poll of Sarvis voters showed that they would have voted for McAuliffe by a two-to-one margin over Cucinelli. Second, and far more important, it presumes that all potential votes somehow really “belong” to either Democrats or Republicans. That’s simply wrong and it does a real disservice to American politics.
Also in this race, Dem turnout was up 4% while Rep voter turnout was down 5%.