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20 August 2007

Third-Party Candidates Can Influence U.S. Presidential Elections

Independents can highlight specific issues, affect outcome of close races

Third party presidential candidates get set to debate at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 2004. (© AP Images)

Washington -- Although the Republicans and Democrats dominate the American political landscape, third parties have a long and active history of influencing U.S. presidential elections.

In the 2000 election, candidates of 12 other parties appeared on some or all state ballots. In 2004, there were again 12 third parties fielding candidates. Some, like the "prohibition parties" (primarily against the sale of alcohol) and various socialist groups, garnered only enough voter support signatures to qualify for the ballot in a few states. Others, however, were on the ballot in more than half of the 50 states: the Green Party, an environmentally concerned group (28); the Constitution Party, a Christian fundamentalist group (38); the Libertarian Party, a group that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal (49); and the Independent/Reform Party candidacy of Ralph Nader, a liberal reform group (37 with qualifications for several additional states undergoing judicial review).

It is extremely difficult for third parties to mount a credible challenge to the Republican and Democratic candidates, however. The Electoral College process and procedures for getting on the ballot, taking part in debates, and receiving government campaign funds all favor the established parties.

In addition, third parties rarely have the large statewide organizations of the major parties; they have less expertise in running campaigns; they get less media coverage. Since they are not already in power and are less well known, they find it harder to raise money and, because extraordinarily large sums are needed to compete in U.S. nationwide races, they have to spend more time fundraising than campaigning on their issues. Still, some third-party candidates are successful at the local and state level, and there have been independent party representatives in Congress.

Third parties can, however, produce dramatic results. Their candidates can be "spoilers" -- in a close presidential election, they can take away enough votes from a major-party candidate that he loses a state's popular vote and, hence, its electoral votes and the presidency. This has happened several times in U.S. history. In 1912, former president Teddy Roosevelt's third-party candidacy took more than 27 percent and split the Republican vote, allowing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win the presidency. In more recent times, George Wallace in 1968 and Ross Perot in 1992 took significant percentages of voters from both major parties in the general election. Many people believe that the 2000 Nader campaign took enough votes (2.8 million) away from Democratic candidate Al Gore that it caused Gore to lose the Electoral College election to George W. Bush. For that reason, Nader's repeat candidacy in the 2004 election was closely watched by both major parties, but he won less than 1 percent (.38 percent) of the popular vote.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)