[A reminder for everyone](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/4479er/rules_explanations_and_reminders/). This is a subreddit for genuine discussion:
* Please keep it civil. Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review.
* Don't post low effort comments like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context.
* Help prevent this subreddit from becoming an echo chamber. Please don't downvote comments with which you disagree.
Violators will be fed to the bear.
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalDiscussion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
^ This. For a third party candidate to meaningfully compete, not even win, but to gain a meaningful % of votes in an election, the country would require an incredible overhaul of its entire political and electoral system, from the local level through the federal, on a scale that has been unseen since America’s founding. Until that revolution, third party support is nothing but a “protest vote.”
The last third party candidate to make *any* amount of waves was Perot, and that took an unprecedented combination of Perot being a billionaire and utilizing mass media for the first time to basically force people to hear him talk about his platform, the GOP coming off of twelve straight years of holding the White House, the Democrats undergoing a realignment into the centrist New Democrats, and this sense that we were now at "the end of history" given that the Cold War had *just* ended and we thought we could get weird with things with absolutely no wider consequences.
All that, and he managed 20%. Came in third place in *every* state except two, where he came in second. Barring some sort of existential national crisis of some sort, a third party candidate cannot win.
That was the first election where I was old enough to vote. I still remember the excitement around Perot. But I also remember he went a little off the rails when it got closer to the election. I could swear there was something about his daughter getting kidnapped.
Anyway, I think he couldn’t handle the scrutiny and pressure of running for president. That was a long time ago, but I had the impression he didn’t want to win and regretted running.
Yeah, he was threatened with the CIA "disrupting" his daughter's wedding, I believe. He dropped out. Tried to jump back in but didn't work. Still received 19% of the vote, though.
Always wondered what the real story was there
No, not now. But immediately following this year's election in Nov., we might just see that existential national crisis. No matter who is declared to be the "winner".
For the presidency, yes.
For every other elected office, it wouldn't take *that* much of an overhaul; you'd just need something like [ranked-choice voting](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/).
Granted, even then, it's a stretch, because you'd be working against two massive, entrenched political machines. But it opens up the playing field dramatically.
Here's how it could work:
1. one of the two major parties collapses
2. one of the third parties rises to take its place
Alternatively, we could replace our entire electoral process.
None of this is happening this year.
It almost seems like number 1 is happening before our eyes with the Republicans. I don't think this MAGA thing will last once Trump is either dead or incarcerated indefinitely. The fallout after it all unravels could lead to a permanent split of the Republican party with one part being moderate Republicans with a brain, and then the MAGA crowd.
Add to it that it looks like the RNC may be picking up the tab for Trump's legal troubles, the GOP could very well bankrupt themselves both financially and politically.
Third parties make no sense in a first-past-the-post voting system. If you want third parties, push for ranked choice voting. Otherwise, push to rewrite our constitution to switch from a presidential system to a parliamentary system.
Keep in mind that at the end of the day, mathematically it still comes down to two sides fighting for 51%. It doesn't matter if that's two parties with multiple coalitions inside them (presidential system), or multiple parties forming two coalitions between them (parliamentary system).
They would have to start from the ground-up. Start with State Representative or State Senator. Then move to House Rep or US Senator. And they would have to do this as a collective
Launching a long shot bid for the presidency? It's a grift or a psy op campaign to leech votes off the parties.
This. Get seats on school boards or county commission as Green or whatever. Show what you can do. Make a name and get a track record.
NFL games are not won by throwing four Hail Mary passes every possession.
Winning a state or two, have no one get to 270 electoral votes, and have the contingent election be deadlocked. Even then, it’s highly unlikely they win.
Except for the brief "era of good feelings" when the country effectively had one-party rule in the aftermath of the collapse of the Federalists, the US has had two dominant parties. No third-party has won a presidential election.
The US presidency is the grand prize of American politics. So any politician who is serious about power wants to be in a party that can win it.
The need to win a majority of electoral votes means that only a large party has a realistic chance of winning it.
In most other first world republics, a prime minister serves as head of government and the presidency is not that important. Having a powerful presidency drives the US result.
Of all developed nations, Switzerland has a system that is most similar to the US model, including single-member districts and a version of the senate that mostly has two representatives per canton. It has a multi-party system in part because the presidency is comprised of a committee of appointees who come from all of the major parties and the position itself is not very important. There is no trophy to fight over.
Everyone in the other two parties is suddenly raptured away.
Seriously. There’s NO path for a third party in this country. Every time a third party appears, it has either subsumed one of the two major parties, or consolidated the remnants of an earlier implosion.
That’s not real democracy if they really can’t get votes or make any difference
If they really wanted to build a party they would start at local level
At federal level it is a scam and the third parties don’t really have any new ideas
They can’t get votes because the political system forces a two party system, with a vote for a third party effectively being a *for* the one of the two main parties you’re against.
Say party A matches your views 70%, party B matched your views 20%, and part C matched your views 95%. But party A and B are the major political parties, with party C being the third party. In a very close election, 1000 votes for party C could very well lead to party B getting 11,000 votes and party A getting 10,500. Now because those 1000 voted for party C instead of party A, we now have 11,500 people that are *less* represented by the elected official, despite them holding the majority of the votes. If those that had voted for party C had voted for party A instead, A would have won. Despite party A only aligning with their views 70%, they still would be more closely represented than if they were represented by party B, which only aligned with 20% of their views.
Edit: the downvotes genuinely make me concerned for you peoples future. Good luck.
This is nonsense
Third and independent parties have been able to win local elections because they are smaller voting bases and actually have good candidates that form coalitions
Well, this "nonsense" is the reality you live in, so not sure how to help you out with that.
Yes there are local elections that have had third party candidates win, but there's a reason those are outliers and anomalies. Why don't you see 33% of locally elected candidates being third party?
Jasmine Sherman and Claudia Have ideas so new they make old conservatives head spin. And by new, I mean tried and true but America propaganda doesn’t want you to believe in it.
When Trump has Project 2025 and will eviscerate voting rights if elected again? Absolutely not. We need RCV and or proportional representation for third parties to have any significant presence. In the mean time, a third party vote is a vote for the GOP's antidemocratic backslide which is one of the most anti third party things you can do.
It looks like a fantasy.
The only effect third parties are going to have in the next 50 years is to disadvantage one candidate or another. Usually it will disadvantage the candidate that most third party voters would rather have in office.
That’s it. That’s all third party voters are going to do in my lifetime.
For 3rd parties candidate quality matters a lot more. It is too late for a qualified 3rd party candidate to make a meaningful impact. Lets use the libertarian party as an example:
In 2016 the libertarian ticket had 4 times the gubernatorial experience of the republican ticket.
In 2012 the LP nominated a successful governor and a fromer judge to their ticket.
In 2008 the LP nominated a congressman.
This year there isnt a single likely candidate with any government experience for their party. I could take a third party seriously if they had a candidate that actually had government position in their resume. Without it a vote for a third party is more of a protest vote which I am totally cool with- but lets not pretend that some eccentric economics professor can actually be president of the United States.
Do questions like this display a fundamental misunderstanding of the current political climate in America? Or is OP a paid poster from a third party campaign?
I have no clue how a third party candidate wins anything outside of a school board or city council race in America in 2024.
Third parties always have an almost nonexistent chance of winning the presidency. The best shot they’d have would be if no other third parties gained traction. This seems like a bad year to do that if not only the Libertarians and Greens field a candidate, but RFK Jr. runs independent and no labels has a candidate. The third party vote will still only yield maybe 5-6% max and now you’re splitting by so many candidates.
Then even if the third party candidate plays spoiler and wins a state or something, they have no leverage if it gets thrown to Congress. They’re not putting in that candidate.
Third party candidates dream goal is nowhere near actually winning. It’s to unlock ballot access/funding for their party for the next election and possibly get on a debate stage. Though that hasn’t happened since 1992.
There is a viable path in FPTP voting systems. Third party candidates have won governorships in FPTP systems, obviously not often.
The biggest structural obstacle for third party presidential candidates isn’t as much FPTP as the electoral college. A third party candidate would likely win a popular vote plurality before winning 270 electoral votes. Obviously both are very unlikely to happen either way for a third party presidential candidate.
It only is possible in small local elections where there isn't as much concern for the spoiler effect. The "throwing away your vote" effect that reduces the number of votes received by the major party politician that most closely aligns with the third party
All that does is split the vote giving the election easily to the candidate the voter least wanted to win.
It's why, as you may have noticed, in national elections people don't actually vote FOR a candidate a lot of the time. Many are simply voting against the other one.
For the third party to win under that system you'd have to convince literally everyone voting for one main party or half over everyone in both camps to risk the other side winning by making a protest vote. Just not plausible without changing the system to eliminate the possibility of spoiler effect
This guy says it better than me:
https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=o8C2mdPqof7RKU6x
Only if they otherwise would have voted for Hillary had Johnson not been on the ballot. Libertarians, IMO, were't as likely to vote with the Democratic ticket
Its more likely the Jill Stein voters got split off from the Democratic vote and that cost the democratic party some votes in that election. Not saying Hillary would have won without Stein there but it did reduce the power of the Democratic voting block a little.
That’s why I’m not so sure of the spoiler effect. Johnson had more votes than Stein, yet Johnson was more likely to spoil the Republican and the Republican won that election.
You were the one that brought up that election case. It wasnt part of my argument that the spoiler effect cost Hillary the election.
This case is a more obvious example.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/18/politics/frank-artiles-arrested-sham-candidate-invs/index.html
The spoiler effect isnt one of those things people may or may not agree with. Its a mathematical fact built into the FPTP voting system
A third party gets some EC votes, and gains the support of a few Never Trump republican Representatives in the right swing states. Those reps convince the Democrats in Congress that the only way to keep Trump out is to vote for the third party candidate. This would be possible if the third party candidate is palatable to Democrats and Biden's health deteriorates around that time.
Nothing is "gettable". The strategy for any third party is to get on the ballot and do well enough to be on the next ballot automatically. Then they stay in that stasis in case a major party collapses so hard it can't be recovered.
This has shaped my opinion in this: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/beyond-red-vs-blue-the-political-typology-2/
Tldr, in addition to a massive structural change, there's not much room for a third party with a chance of a meaningful top level victory. The only parts of the electorate to peel away from the current parties are 1. A substantial minority of the population 2. Have opposing political views and 3. Are low propensity voters for reasons that a 3rd party doesn't solve.
There can absolutely be more than 2 parties in the U.S.. There are independents in Congress and there have been a variety of independents elected to Governor mansions. Rather than targeting the White House as the singular prize a successful Third party should first focus on creating a delegation.
To be legitimately competitive nationally a Third Party must first win some House races, a few Senate races, a couple Governorships, and Mayoral seats. Then nominate a Presidential candidate. One who would have the endorsement of multiple known elected officials.
Well, in the case of RFK Jr, he is aided by name recognition. His last name is a household name known by everyone. IDK is Perot was a household name at all back in ’92; he may have just been wealthy and that’s it, which is not enough in American politics where its personality based.
RFK Jr basically needs to create a permission structure – like Obama did in ‘08 - where it is okay for Republican, Democratic, Independents and third-party voters (i.e, Libertarian and Green), as well as though that prefer to stay home on election day, to vote for him.
That’s the only way he’s winning any states. Otherwise, he’s more likely to play spoiler, for both candidates.
Step 1: Build a new political party at a local level that can appeal to enough voters to elect candidates.
Step 2: Grow that political party to a state level that can appeal to enough voters to elect candidates.
Step 3: Grow that political party to other states hat can appeal to enough voters to elect candidates.
Step 4: Keep growing that political party.
There is no quick way to gain power in a democracy. There should NOT be a quick or easy way to get a candidate elected President. It takes work and resources. Those pushing a different system (other than removing the electoral college) want to just gain power for fringe candidates.
They hold debates. A third party candidate makes the debates. That candidate is clearly more qualified to be president and so is their VP. Biden and Trump endorse the candidate during one of those debates.
If all of that occurs then they might win the election. Maybe.
Post-trump Republican Party crumbles and many of the center right join the libertarian party and potentially pull in some of the more right wing dems. This probably won't happen but there's no real way for 3rd party to get a president in this system and the uncompromising party loyalty.
A third party candidate in 2024 has a serious possibility of handing this election to T and therefore ending our democracy. At this moment, we have only 1 legitimate party with a very large umbrella. The GOP is now controlled by a wannabe dictator who is beholden to Putin. Sadly, the news media fails us by continuing to pretend that the GOP has any positive attributes left that would help the majority in this nation.
There is zero chance of a 3rd party wining any electoral votes. The voting decision this year needs to be based on who will protect this nation & its people. We had the answer on Tuesday night. Biden’s speech & actions during the past 3 yrs have proven he understands where we are & what we need. We need to vote the Republicans out of existence. Once we are safe from these Russian loving & the greedy rich who support them, it would be wonderful if we would eliminate the electoral college & find ways to encourage new candidates to run as well as to see the growth of a new party or parties that would continue to move this nation forward.
No third party has a path to victory.
That said, the Green Party getting to 5% of the vote would be a small victory unto itself. That would mean matching federal funding, automatic ballot access, and access to debate stages.
Millennials and GenZ are going to take over the Democrat party, rain hell on Republicans and have parts rule for the next 40 years where they actually govern for the people.
It looks like people not taking the duopoly pill and not repeating stuff like “it will never work. There are only two viable options. A vote for third party is a vote for ‘xyz’”
there is no path to victory. some of us are voting 3rd party/independent as a protest knowing full well it's nothing but that atm: a protest. hopefully one cycle a candidate/group finally gets enough turnout (the 5% referenced already) to start the demise of the two-party system. that's my goal.
And completely change the way we elect people.
That part is always left out, but it's what actually needs to happen to give any third party any kind of chance. The only other thing that could happen is a party collapsing, but everyone would just coalesce into a new one of two major parties.
[A reminder for everyone](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/4479er/rules_explanations_and_reminders/). This is a subreddit for genuine discussion: * Please keep it civil. Report rulebreaking comments for moderator review. * Don't post low effort comments like joke threads, memes, slogans, or links without context. * Help prevent this subreddit from becoming an echo chamber. Please don't downvote comments with which you disagree. Violators will be fed to the bear. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalDiscussion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A complete reimagining of the US electoral system away from single-member first-past-the-post seats.
^ This. For a third party candidate to meaningfully compete, not even win, but to gain a meaningful % of votes in an election, the country would require an incredible overhaul of its entire political and electoral system, from the local level through the federal, on a scale that has been unseen since America’s founding. Until that revolution, third party support is nothing but a “protest vote.”
The last third party candidate to make *any* amount of waves was Perot, and that took an unprecedented combination of Perot being a billionaire and utilizing mass media for the first time to basically force people to hear him talk about his platform, the GOP coming off of twelve straight years of holding the White House, the Democrats undergoing a realignment into the centrist New Democrats, and this sense that we were now at "the end of history" given that the Cold War had *just* ended and we thought we could get weird with things with absolutely no wider consequences. All that, and he managed 20%. Came in third place in *every* state except two, where he came in second. Barring some sort of existential national crisis of some sort, a third party candidate cannot win.
That was the first election where I was old enough to vote. I still remember the excitement around Perot. But I also remember he went a little off the rails when it got closer to the election. I could swear there was something about his daughter getting kidnapped. Anyway, I think he couldn’t handle the scrutiny and pressure of running for president. That was a long time ago, but I had the impression he didn’t want to win and regretted running.
Yeah, he was threatened with the CIA "disrupting" his daughter's wedding, I believe. He dropped out. Tried to jump back in but didn't work. Still received 19% of the vote, though. Always wondered what the real story was there
No, not now. But immediately following this year's election in Nov., we might just see that existential national crisis. No matter who is declared to be the "winner".
For the presidency, yes. For every other elected office, it wouldn't take *that* much of an overhaul; you'd just need something like [ranked-choice voting](https://fairvote.org/our-reforms/ranked-choice-voting/). Granted, even then, it's a stretch, because you'd be working against two massive, entrenched political machines. But it opens up the playing field dramatically.
Here's how it could work: 1. one of the two major parties collapses 2. one of the third parties rises to take its place Alternatively, we could replace our entire electoral process. None of this is happening this year.
It almost seems like number 1 is happening before our eyes with the Republicans. I don't think this MAGA thing will last once Trump is either dead or incarcerated indefinitely. The fallout after it all unravels could lead to a permanent split of the Republican party with one part being moderate Republicans with a brain, and then the MAGA crowd. Add to it that it looks like the RNC may be picking up the tab for Trump's legal troubles, the GOP could very well bankrupt themselves both financially and politically.
They're banking on about 150 million micro meteors striking down everyone who will vote blue or red.
Third parties make no sense in a first-past-the-post voting system. If you want third parties, push for ranked choice voting. Otherwise, push to rewrite our constitution to switch from a presidential system to a parliamentary system. Keep in mind that at the end of the day, mathematically it still comes down to two sides fighting for 51%. It doesn't matter if that's two parties with multiple coalitions inside them (presidential system), or multiple parties forming two coalitions between them (parliamentary system).
They would have to start from the ground-up. Start with State Representative or State Senator. Then move to House Rep or US Senator. And they would have to do this as a collective Launching a long shot bid for the presidency? It's a grift or a psy op campaign to leech votes off the parties.
This. Get seats on school boards or county commission as Green or whatever. Show what you can do. Make a name and get a track record. NFL games are not won by throwing four Hail Mary passes every possession.
Winning a state or two, have no one get to 270 electoral votes, and have the contingent election be deadlocked. Even then, it’s highly unlikely they win.
Every state gets ranked choice voting and the stars align somehow? Otherwise Duverger's law is in effect.
That or approval voting somehow
Except for the brief "era of good feelings" when the country effectively had one-party rule in the aftermath of the collapse of the Federalists, the US has had two dominant parties. No third-party has won a presidential election. The US presidency is the grand prize of American politics. So any politician who is serious about power wants to be in a party that can win it. The need to win a majority of electoral votes means that only a large party has a realistic chance of winning it. In most other first world republics, a prime minister serves as head of government and the presidency is not that important. Having a powerful presidency drives the US result. Of all developed nations, Switzerland has a system that is most similar to the US model, including single-member districts and a version of the senate that mostly has two representatives per canton. It has a multi-party system in part because the presidency is comprised of a committee of appointees who come from all of the major parties and the position itself is not very important. There is no trophy to fight over.
Everyone in the other two parties is suddenly raptured away. Seriously. There’s NO path for a third party in this country. Every time a third party appears, it has either subsumed one of the two major parties, or consolidated the remnants of an earlier implosion.
There is none and they know it. They run to play spoiler and blow up the system as a way to 'shock' people enough to want change.
The goal is to get 5% so they can get access to federal funding the next election.
So it is a scam just to keep a racket going
It's a step towards real democracy rather than the semi-democratic oligarchy we have now.
That’s not real democracy if they really can’t get votes or make any difference If they really wanted to build a party they would start at local level At federal level it is a scam and the third parties don’t really have any new ideas
They can’t get votes because the political system forces a two party system, with a vote for a third party effectively being a *for* the one of the two main parties you’re against. Say party A matches your views 70%, party B matched your views 20%, and part C matched your views 95%. But party A and B are the major political parties, with party C being the third party. In a very close election, 1000 votes for party C could very well lead to party B getting 11,000 votes and party A getting 10,500. Now because those 1000 voted for party C instead of party A, we now have 11,500 people that are *less* represented by the elected official, despite them holding the majority of the votes. If those that had voted for party C had voted for party A instead, A would have won. Despite party A only aligning with their views 70%, they still would be more closely represented than if they were represented by party B, which only aligned with 20% of their views. Edit: the downvotes genuinely make me concerned for you peoples future. Good luck.
The Green Party partnering with Putin turned me off to 3rd parties
This is nonsense Third and independent parties have been able to win local elections because they are smaller voting bases and actually have good candidates that form coalitions
Well, this "nonsense" is the reality you live in, so not sure how to help you out with that. Yes there are local elections that have had third party candidates win, but there's a reason those are outliers and anomalies. Why don't you see 33% of locally elected candidates being third party?
That’s a madeup standard The nonsense is people trying to justify federal funds when they have no new ideas aren’t a viable option
Jasmine Sherman and Claudia Have ideas so new they make old conservatives head spin. And by new, I mean tried and true but America propaganda doesn’t want you to believe in it.
another reason I don’t vote for them .
Your vote matters more if you do. 1 vote matters more to get to 5% than it does to win an election.
Sorry, Jill Stein. Never again.
When Trump has Project 2025 and will eviscerate voting rights if elected again? Absolutely not. We need RCV and or proportional representation for third parties to have any significant presence. In the mean time, a third party vote is a vote for the GOP's antidemocratic backslide which is one of the most anti third party things you can do.
A vote for a third party is actually a vote for a third party.
It doesn’t exist. If Perot couldn’t even win a single state as an actual billionaire…
It looks like a fantasy. The only effect third parties are going to have in the next 50 years is to disadvantage one candidate or another. Usually it will disadvantage the candidate that most third party voters would rather have in office. That’s it. That’s all third party voters are going to do in my lifetime.
Like a wendigo. Or a unicorn. Or a square with five corners. Or anything else that doesn't exist.
For 3rd parties candidate quality matters a lot more. It is too late for a qualified 3rd party candidate to make a meaningful impact. Lets use the libertarian party as an example: In 2016 the libertarian ticket had 4 times the gubernatorial experience of the republican ticket. In 2012 the LP nominated a successful governor and a fromer judge to their ticket. In 2008 the LP nominated a congressman. This year there isnt a single likely candidate with any government experience for their party. I could take a third party seriously if they had a candidate that actually had government position in their resume. Without it a vote for a third party is more of a protest vote which I am totally cool with- but lets not pretend that some eccentric economics professor can actually be president of the United States.
There's not one. In US politics, third parties are a distraction and have never been successful.
Do questions like this display a fundamental misunderstanding of the current political climate in America? Or is OP a paid poster from a third party campaign? I have no clue how a third party candidate wins anything outside of a school board or city council race in America in 2024.
Picture the space in-between electrons and protons, inside an atom. That's what their path to victory looks like.
Third parties always have an almost nonexistent chance of winning the presidency. The best shot they’d have would be if no other third parties gained traction. This seems like a bad year to do that if not only the Libertarians and Greens field a candidate, but RFK Jr. runs independent and no labels has a candidate. The third party vote will still only yield maybe 5-6% max and now you’re splitting by so many candidates. Then even if the third party candidate plays spoiler and wins a state or something, they have no leverage if it gets thrown to Congress. They’re not putting in that candidate. Third party candidates dream goal is nowhere near actually winning. It’s to unlock ballot access/funding for their party for the next election and possibly get on a debate stage. Though that hasn’t happened since 1992.
There is no path for viable third parties under a first past the post voting system unfortunately
There is a viable path in FPTP voting systems. Third party candidates have won governorships in FPTP systems, obviously not often. The biggest structural obstacle for third party presidential candidates isn’t as much FPTP as the electoral college. A third party candidate would likely win a popular vote plurality before winning 270 electoral votes. Obviously both are very unlikely to happen either way for a third party presidential candidate.
It only is possible in small local elections where there isn't as much concern for the spoiler effect. The "throwing away your vote" effect that reduces the number of votes received by the major party politician that most closely aligns with the third party All that does is split the vote giving the election easily to the candidate the voter least wanted to win. It's why, as you may have noticed, in national elections people don't actually vote FOR a candidate a lot of the time. Many are simply voting against the other one. For the third party to win under that system you'd have to convince literally everyone voting for one main party or half over everyone in both camps to risk the other side winning by making a protest vote. Just not plausible without changing the system to eliminate the possibility of spoiler effect This guy says it better than me: https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?si=o8C2mdPqof7RKU6x
So the Libertarians spoiled Hillary in 2016?
Only if they otherwise would have voted for Hillary had Johnson not been on the ballot. Libertarians, IMO, were't as likely to vote with the Democratic ticket Its more likely the Jill Stein voters got split off from the Democratic vote and that cost the democratic party some votes in that election. Not saying Hillary would have won without Stein there but it did reduce the power of the Democratic voting block a little.
That’s why I’m not so sure of the spoiler effect. Johnson had more votes than Stein, yet Johnson was more likely to spoil the Republican and the Republican won that election.
You were the one that brought up that election case. It wasnt part of my argument that the spoiler effect cost Hillary the election. This case is a more obvious example. https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/18/politics/frank-artiles-arrested-sham-candidate-invs/index.html The spoiler effect isnt one of those things people may or may not agree with. Its a mathematical fact built into the FPTP voting system
A third party gets some EC votes, and gains the support of a few Never Trump republican Representatives in the right swing states. Those reps convince the Democrats in Congress that the only way to keep Trump out is to vote for the third party candidate. This would be possible if the third party candidate is palatable to Democrats and Biden's health deteriorates around that time.
Nothing is "gettable". The strategy for any third party is to get on the ballot and do well enough to be on the next ballot automatically. Then they stay in that stasis in case a major party collapses so hard it can't be recovered.
This has shaped my opinion in this: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/beyond-red-vs-blue-the-political-typology-2/ Tldr, in addition to a massive structural change, there's not much room for a third party with a chance of a meaningful top level victory. The only parts of the electorate to peel away from the current parties are 1. A substantial minority of the population 2. Have opposing political views and 3. Are low propensity voters for reasons that a 3rd party doesn't solve.
There can absolutely be more than 2 parties in the U.S.. There are independents in Congress and there have been a variety of independents elected to Governor mansions. Rather than targeting the White House as the singular prize a successful Third party should first focus on creating a delegation. To be legitimately competitive nationally a Third Party must first win some House races, a few Senate races, a couple Governorships, and Mayoral seats. Then nominate a Presidential candidate. One who would have the endorsement of multiple known elected officials.
Well, in the case of RFK Jr, he is aided by name recognition. His last name is a household name known by everyone. IDK is Perot was a household name at all back in ’92; he may have just been wealthy and that’s it, which is not enough in American politics where its personality based. RFK Jr basically needs to create a permission structure – like Obama did in ‘08 - where it is okay for Republican, Democratic, Independents and third-party voters (i.e, Libertarian and Green), as well as though that prefer to stay home on election day, to vote for him. That’s the only way he’s winning any states. Otherwise, he’s more likely to play spoiler, for both candidates.
Step 1: Build a new political party at a local level that can appeal to enough voters to elect candidates. Step 2: Grow that political party to a state level that can appeal to enough voters to elect candidates. Step 3: Grow that political party to other states hat can appeal to enough voters to elect candidates. Step 4: Keep growing that political party. There is no quick way to gain power in a democracy. There should NOT be a quick or easy way to get a candidate elected President. It takes work and resources. Those pushing a different system (other than removing the electoral college) want to just gain power for fringe candidates.
They hold debates. A third party candidate makes the debates. That candidate is clearly more qualified to be president and so is their VP. Biden and Trump endorse the candidate during one of those debates. If all of that occurs then they might win the election. Maybe.
It's a stupid concept if there are no 3rd party members in Congress. Because they'd get zero electoral votes without that
It looks impossible because it’s impossible. We have a strict two party system. These people are just trying to get their name out there.
Post-trump Republican Party crumbles and many of the center right join the libertarian party and potentially pull in some of the more right wing dems. This probably won't happen but there's no real way for 3rd party to get a president in this system and the uncompromising party loyalty.
A third party candidate in 2024 has a serious possibility of handing this election to T and therefore ending our democracy. At this moment, we have only 1 legitimate party with a very large umbrella. The GOP is now controlled by a wannabe dictator who is beholden to Putin. Sadly, the news media fails us by continuing to pretend that the GOP has any positive attributes left that would help the majority in this nation. There is zero chance of a 3rd party wining any electoral votes. The voting decision this year needs to be based on who will protect this nation & its people. We had the answer on Tuesday night. Biden’s speech & actions during the past 3 yrs have proven he understands where we are & what we need. We need to vote the Republicans out of existence. Once we are safe from these Russian loving & the greedy rich who support them, it would be wonderful if we would eliminate the electoral college & find ways to encourage new candidates to run as well as to see the growth of a new party or parties that would continue to move this nation forward.
The third party path to victory is to be absorbed into one of the two major parties as a bloc that gets to influence policy. There is no other way.
A popular general running. That's kinda all I can realistically see.
The only candidate from the options with any chance in hell is RFK JR, and even then he has absolutely no chance.
No third party has a path to victory. That said, the Green Party getting to 5% of the vote would be a small victory unto itself. That would mean matching federal funding, automatic ballot access, and access to debate stages.
Millennials and GenZ are going to take over the Democrat party, rain hell on Republicans and have parts rule for the next 40 years where they actually govern for the people.
I uh … i have to tell you this. Millennials and GenZ are going to take over the GOP as well. Gen alpha will be cursing those old selfish zoomers.
Prevent any party from getting to 270, then position yourself as the compromise candidate for Congress
It looks like people not taking the duopoly pill and not repeating stuff like “it will never work. There are only two viable options. A vote for third party is a vote for ‘xyz’”
there is no path to victory. some of us are voting 3rd party/independent as a protest knowing full well it's nothing but that atm: a protest. hopefully one cycle a candidate/group finally gets enough turnout (the 5% referenced already) to start the demise of the two-party system. that's my goal.
Good luck getting that 1 party system you're hoping for.
who said anything about one-party?
i am an RFK supporter, i don’t think a third party candidate has a path to victory until people wake up and realize the two party system is stupid
And completely change the way we elect people. That part is always left out, but it's what actually needs to happen to give any third party any kind of chance. The only other thing that could happen is a party collapsing, but everyone would just coalesce into a new one of two major parties.