Third-Party Presidential Candidates

[lpetrich]

I don't like "third party" in this context, because there have been a lot of them. But fairvote.org has some nice histories of third-party Presidential candidates.

A History of Third Party and Independent Presidential Candidates - FairVote - a year ago
The United States’ history of third party candidates: Is the problem with third parties, or with our binary election system? - FairVote - recently

I'll begin in the beginning. The creators of the Constitution ignored the possibility of them as they designed that document. Those who expressed any opinion on that subject disliked political parties. Like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

But before the end of GW's first term, the politicians started to divide into parties, and by the second term, the Federalists and Democrat-Republicans had taken shape. The Federalists were dominant at first, then the D-R's, with the Federalists fading in the 1820's. Then the D-R's split into the Democrats and National Republicans, with the NR's becoming Whigs and then disintegrating in the mid 19th cy. Of the parties that emerged around then, it was the Republicans who made it big. Ever since, the two main parties have been Democrats and Republicans.

 

[lpetrich]

Now those histories. The second one repeats a lot of the first one's content, so I'll treat them together.

1844. James K. Polk, Henry Clay, James Birney

JKP: pro-slavery, warmonger who wanted to conquer lands to the west
HC: soft abolitionist, wanted to isolate the slave states and let it die a natural death
JB: hard-line abolitionist, wanted to outlaw slavery right away

HC and JB split the anti-slavery vote, letting JKP win.

Lawrence Lessig mentioned this election in What Is Rank Choice Voting? How Maine's Voting System Can Lead The Way To A Stronger US Democracy

1848. Zachary Taylor, Lewis Cass, Martin Van Buren (spoiler for Lewis Cass)

1856. James Buchanan, John Fremont, Millard Fillmore - PV 45.3%, 33.1%, 21.5% - EV 174, 114, 8

1860. Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, John Bell - PV 39.8%, 29.5%, 18.1%, 12.6% - EV 180, 12, 11, 39

Lumping Northern Democrat SAD and Southern Democrat JCB together gives 47.6%, more than what AL got.

1892. Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, James B. Weaver - PV 46.0%, 43.0%, 8.5% - EV 277, 145, 22

Populist Party candidate JBW kept the two major ones from getting one with a majority.

 

[lpetrich]

1912. Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Eugene V. Debs - PV 41.8%, 27.4%, 23.2%, 6.0% - EV 435, 88, 8, 0

After TR didn't get the Republican nomination, he founded his own party, the Progressive or "Bull Moose" Party. But he split the Republican vote, letting WW win.

This election led to a lot of discussion of second-choice voting -- ranked-choice or preference voting with each voter voting only two preferences.

1968. Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace - PV 43.4%, 42.7%, 13.5% - EV 301, 191, 46

GW wanted to deprive both RN and HH of an electoral-college majority, so he could decide which of the two that he wanted to be President.

This led to an effort to abolish the Electoral College, but it failed.

1980. Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, John B. Anderson - PV 50.7%, 41.0%, 6.6% - EV 489, 49, 0

As RR got ahead in the nomination, JBA, a "Rockefeller Republican", decided to run as an Independent. Though RR won most of the states, he won only half of them with a majority, because of JBA being present.

BTW, I recall a joke from that time. The three candidates looked like a Grecian Formula hair-dye commercial.

1992. Bill Clinton, George Bush I, Ross Perot - PV 43.0%, 37.4%, 18.9% - EV 370, 168, 0

1996. Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Ross Perot - PV 49.2%, 8.4%, 40.7% - EV 379, 158, 0

Though RP was more like the Republicans like the Democrats, he drew votes from both parties, so it's hard to say how his absence might have changed the election.

2000. George Bush II, Al Gore, Ralph Nader - PV 47.9%, 48.4%, 2.74% - EV 271, 266, 0

In Florida, GBII's margin of victory was 537 votes, but 3rd parties got 138,063 votes, and RN got 97,488 votes. As to how RN's voters might have voted with him not in the race, I read somewhere 2/3 AG, 1/3 GBII.

2016. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Gary Johnson, Jill Stein - PV 46.09%, 48.18%, 3.28%, 1.07% - EV 227, 304, 0, 0

Gary Johnson was running as a Libertarian, and many of his voters might have voted for DT instead. So DT would still have won. But if his voters and JS's voters had a tilt toward HC, then she might have won.

 

[lpetrich]

Not just the Democrats and Republicans, but various other parties have held conventions where they nominated Presidents, like the Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Prohibition, States Rights, Populist, and Socialist parties.

Julia Foodman concludes the beginning of her 2019 article

Since the dominant two-party system has solidified, no third party candidates has won a presidential election. Nonetheless, historically they have played a critical role in forcing major parties to cater to the issues that people care about the most. Had ranked choice voting been implemented during our previous 58 American presidential elections, our history of presidents would likely look different. We will examine our diverse history of third party candidates who, while not winning the presidency themselves, often affected the outcome.

Then discussing those Presidential races.

Pedro Hernandez mentions Justin Amash's short-lived race, then mentions the possibility of the Libertarian candidate taking votes from Trump or the Green candidate taking votes from Bernie Sanders supporters.

 

[lpetrich]

Spoilers? How Third-Party Candidates Changed the Midterm Elections - The Atlantic
noting
Midterm Election: Spoiler Candidates Matter Far Less Than You Think - TIME magazine
noting
Did Ralph Nader Spoil a Gore Presidency?
Concludes that Nader's voters would have voted 60% Gore, 40% Bush, thus helping Gore win Florida.

Spoilers are rare in Congressional races. From The Atlantic:

An analysis by Time earlier this week showed that the only time a third-party candidate truly “spoiled” a congressional race in the last five election cycles was in 2008, when Democrat Al Franken beat Republican Senator Norm Coleman by one-tenth of one percent, while Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley garnered more than 15 percent of the vote.

But they are much more common in governors' races.

Like in Maine in 2010 and 2014, where Eliot Cutler competed with the Democratic candidates for votes, helping Republican Paul LePage win both times. That led to the state adopting ranked-choice voting.

2010: Paul LePage (R) 37.6%, Elizabeth Mitchell (D) 16.8%, Eliot R. Cutler 35.9% (I), others 5%, 1%, 0.5%
2014: Paul LePage (R) 48.2%, Mike Michaud (D) 43.4%, Eliot R. Cutler (I) 8.4%
2018: Janet T. Mills (D) 50.9%, Shawn Moody (R): 43.2%, others 5.9%, 0.0

Looking at other states, I find
2010: CT, FL, IL, MA, ME, MN, OH, OR, RI, VT
2011: WV
2012: IN, MT
2013: VA
2014: AK, CO, FL, HI, MA, ME, OR, RI, VT
2015:
2016: NC, NH, WV
2017:
2018: CT, FL, KS, WI
2019: KY

 

[lpetrich]

Everyone wants to be the next AOC. And that’s the problem. | CSNY
I like this bit:

Michael Weinstock, a former sex crimes prosecutor in Brooklyn and volunteer firefighter, was furious when his local congressman, Tom Suozzi, wrote a letter to a judge urging leniency for Gerard Terry, a Nassau County Democratic official sentenced for tax fraud in 2018. Somebody ought to run against Suozzi, Weinstock thought. Then, he remembered a lesson he learned in the fire department: “If you ever find yourself saying, ‘Somebody needs to take care of that,’ that somebody is you.”

So he is now running against TS for the NY-03 seat. But also doing so is activist Melanie D'Arrigo. Also, a certain Josh Sauberman planned to run, but he either quit or didn't make it on the ballot.

Representatives who have coasted for decades without a primary, or only facing an occasional challenger from the fringes, now find themselves running against two, three or even five opponents. But while challengers are navigating the crowded fields, House members may be breathing a sigh of relief.

Because they split the opposition vote, thus becoming spoilers for each other and letting the incumbent win. That's a side effect of first-past-the-post elections, the usual sort here in the US. A nation whose defenders brag about how advanced it is, yet a nation that uses such a crude and antiquated system. It's easy to count votes in, yes, but vote counting isn't the problem that it was in the past. Once one gets an election's votes into a computer, then counting them is a snap -- a typical laptop can do it in a fraction of a second.

Some challengers have discussed the dynamic among themselves. Andom Ghebreghiorgis, a 34-year-old special education teacher, is one of four Democrats who have launched campaigns to unseat 16-term incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel in the 16th Congressional District, covering the North Bronx and southern Westchester County. Ghebreghiorgis told City & State that he and another challenger, Jamaal Bowman, chatted earlier in the summer. Both are black educators running to Engel’s left, and shared serious concerns about splitting the vote. Having multiple challengers now, 10 months before the primary, is “a boon to the discourse, and it’s beneficial,” Ghebreghiorgis said. But that might change by April, when petitions are due and the primary ballot is finalized. He and Bowman didn’t reach any formal agreement, but Ghebreghiorgis suggested that if one of their candidacies was flailing by then, one could drop out. Nobody would be forced, Ghebreghiorgis said, and the goal would be to “be open and be transparent and not try to follow the historical machine politics tactics.”

...
Other challengers acknowledged the gamesmanship that’s part of any crowded primary, like Erica Vladimer, an attorney and former state Senate staffer who’s running against Rep. Carolyn Maloney. The 14-term incumbent seemed vulnerable after her lone primary challenger in 2018, Suraj Patel, managed to win 40% of the vote. Patel has yet to announce whether he’s running again in the 12th Congressional District covering parts of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn on the East River but three other Democrats – including Vladimer – have already filed. Vladimer has met with the other two, Lauren Ashcraft and Peter Harrison, and speaks of them more like teammates than opponents. Vladimer says she’s in the race to win, but suggested that beating Maloney is the main goal – even if she herself loses.

“It’s important for all of us to have conversations with one another, because there is strategy that goes into winning for a cause versus ourselves,” she said. “I think at this point we’ll see how the pieces fall.”

Erica Vladimer has since dropped out of the NY-12 race. But Suraj Patel is back, and the two are joined by Lauren Ashcraft and Peter Harrison.

Checking on NY-16, Jamaal Bowman and Andom Ghebreghiorgis are still in the race, alongside two other challengers and a third one who is now gone from the race.

As to AOC herself, she has six Democratic challengers and eight Republican ones. Of the six Democrats, three have dropped out, leaving three. Of the eight Republicans, seven have dropped out, leaving one. They are mainly campaigning against AOC, so they are likely to split the anti-AOC vote.