I am asking about actual third parties, not independents like Angus King or Bernie Sanders. I am also not counting someone like Gary Johnson, who was elected Governor as a Republican, and switched to a third party after his term was over. What is the highest office reached by a Libertarian, or a Green, or a member of the Constitution party?
It looks like the most recent one on the lists from that link that qualifies is Orlan Steen Loomis from the Progressive party for governor of Wisconsin back in 1942. There’s also Jesse Ventura listed as winning the governorship of Minnesota as a member of the Reform party. I’m not sure if you would count him as third party or independent.
I want to say that Abraham Lincoln counts for this. The Republican party is an established party now, but it wasn’t back then. The Republican party formed in 1854, so in the 1860 election it was a brand new “third” party. I put that in quotes because there were more than three parties in that election. The Democratic party had split into Northern Democrats and Southern Democrats over the issue of slavery. The Constitution Party was mostly the remains of the Whigs and some smaller groups like the Know Nothings. The Liberty Party was a small abolitionist group. The People’s Party was another small group.
The Republican Party did well in the 1856 election but didn’t win the presidency. Before that, the two main parties were the Democrats and the Whigs. In the mid 1850s, this upstart third party called the Republicans came along, and no one’s really heard of the Whigs since then.
Which did he run as? If he ran as an independent, he counts as an independent. If he ran under the banner of the Reform party, I would count him as third party.
He ran under the banner of the Reform party, but left the party within a year of assuming office to become an independent. That’s why I’m not sure if he would qualify as a successful third party candidate or not under the criteria you set out.
He won the election as a member of a third party, so I would count him.
The Republican Party was a new party in 1856 but it was never a third party. The Whig Party collapsed so quickly and thoroughly it had disappeared and there was no Whig candidate in 1856. So the Republicans entered the political scene as one of the two major parties.
The only time the Republicans were a “third” party was in 1912 when Theodore Roosevelt ran for re-election. He failed to win the Republican nomination, which went to the incumbent Taft, and formed his own Progressive Party. This split the usual Republican vote. Wilson, the Democratic nominee, won the election. Roosevelt came in second. And Taft became the only incumbent President to come in third in his re-election attempt.
Same source also includes Walter Hickel’s election (with a plurality) as gov of AK under the Alaskan Independence Party in 1990. Hickel is better known as a Republican, but AIP was and remains a real party.
The OP limited it to current national minor parties. The Libertarians claim to have 143 elected officials. Their partial list is of small town mayors, city counsel members, elected boards of community colleges and refuse collection agencies, etc. The Greens have a handful of local elected officials featured on their website. The Constitution Party doesn’t seem to claim any.
I don’t think you can really call the GOP in 1860 a ‘third’ party. The Whigs dissolved at virtually the same time the GOP became a real party in 1854. Briefly after that there was only one major party, the Democrats. By 1856 the GOP became a viable second party. The Constitutional Union Party was the real third party in the 1860 election.
James L. Buckley (older brother of William S. Buckley) was elected to the U.S. senate as a Conservative in 1970. He only got 38% of the vote, but both the Democratic and Republican candidates were fairly liberal. Wikipedia says he’s the most recent third-party candidate to be elected to the Senate.
Minnesota had the Farmer-Labor Party, which elected several governors and senators.
Robert LaFolliette, Jr., was elected to the Senate as a member of the Progressive Party.
Technically, most elected officials in New York are third-party candidates. New York allows candidates to run on multiple party lines, with the votes from all parties credited to the candidate. Andrew Cuomo right now was the Working Families party candidate.
George Patacki was elected despite getting fewer votes as a Republican than Mario Cuomo got as a Democrat. Pataki made up the deficit from votes as the candidate of the Conservative Party and the Tax Cut Now Party (NY allows for new parties to be on the ballot through petition). Cuomo’s endorsement from the Liberal Party wasn’t enough.
Another reason to conclude that the Republican Party wasn’t a third party in 1860: they were the majority party in the House of Representatives and the second party in the Senate after the 1858 election.
The 1864 election was an interesting case. Lincoln didn’t run as a Republican exactly, but as a member of the newly created “National Union Party.” I wouldn’t consider it a real third party but a continuation of one of the dominant parties. It was essentially a new temporary name for the larger pro-Lincoln faction of the Republican Party but it also included some pro-war Democrats like eventual VP Andrew Johnson. Anti-Lincoln Republicans also formed their own temporary party called the “Radical Democracy Party” but their candidate, John C. Fremont, dropped out of the race before election day.
Have we ever had a third party President? I know Washington was anti-partisan, but that is basically the same as running independent.
Kansas in the 1890s had two governors from the Populist Party (Lorenzo Lewelling, 1893-95, and John Leedy, 1897-99), along with several Populist senators and representatives during the same time period.
Philip La Follette served as Governor of Wisconsin under the banner of the Wisconsin Progressive Party in the late 1930s, having previously served in that office as a Republican.
I thought you were going to point out that in 1864 he won as a National Unionist and not a Republican and then the discussion would be if that was a third party.
There weren’t political parties in the modern sense when Washington was running. Washington was recognized as belonging to the federalist movement, which was the closest thing to a major party back then.
We have had three former Presidents who ran for re-election as third party candidates. I already mentioned Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive Party 1912). There was also Martin Van Buren (Free Soil Party 1848) and Millard Fillmore (American Party 1856). But all of these men had been President via one of the major parties of their time. And none of them was in office when they ran as a third party candidate nor where any of them successful.
In one of my history classes we talked about how Washington didn’t believe in parties at all. He thought political parties would tear the country apart. Personally, I think he was right!
How about in the last 50 years?
Jesse Ventura, probably. See posts #3 and #5.
He was a party pooper.