One or both of the major parties would have to start falling apart at the seams, setting the stage for a newcomer to fill the available niche.
Teddy’s Bull Moose aka Progressive party did the best, actually coming in 2nd ahead of the GOP candidate.
I ,personally am going to vote for Hillary. I did support Sanders, but I agree with what you are saying that she is using planks from his platform. Some of my friends, however, can’t bring themselves to vote for her. I started this thread not to be pro-Stein or Johnson, but out of curiosity of what a realistic path could be for any third party candidate to reach the presidency.
A highly charismatic, self funded candidate in an environment where the two major candidates were seen as corrupt, criminal and hostile to the interests of 90% of people.
Also if a third party develops and wins a a few governorships, the goes national.
I think a Donald Trump presidency might do it. It might be so shocking, so obvious that the two party system produced such a terrible outcome that some critical mass of voters would consider abandoning the major parties for a third party with a reasonable compromise candidate.
**What would it take for us to get a third party POTUS?
**
A buttload of money, and a candidate that appeals to everyone.
If Trump is able to sink his campaign deeply enough, the Republican party would probably move to support Johnson. Against Hillary - who is not particularly popular - and with the backing of the Republican party, Johnson would have a pretty good chance of making it in, despite still being a member of the Libertarian party.
I’d actually give decent (like 30%) odds of the Trump part happening. So in a sense, right now, we’re pretty close. Not amazingly close - the odds are still against it - but it’s a distinct possibility.
This, although I suspect that technically this wouldn’t be the actual creation of a new party so much as the current GOP severing ties with Trump and his supporters while letting them keep the name “Republican” as a conciliation prize in order to facilitate a clean break, followed by Rubio, Cruz, Romney, the Bushes, et al, conducting old business under a new party name.
Slight hijack, but can anyone tell me if the Whigs, Federalists, etc. morphed into their successor parties in similar fashions?
As mentioned, something similar to the Teddy Roosevelt experience is the most likely.
Start with a youngish President who came into office as VP and became President through the death/resignation of the elected President. He/she is fairly popular and mostly centrist but loses the re-election bid after one term to a strong contender. They sit out the next few cycles. Then they see a chance where the 2 party candidates are weak. They see the 2 parties as both heading to the extremes, so they define a centrist party and mount a campaign. Undecideds, and a big enough block from the 2 major parties get on board. Maybe they come in second in the voting. They spend the next 4 years building support. Then in the next election they prevail.
Alternatively, just some breath play.
Yes, but if you’re a candidate who appeals to everyone and have a buttload of money behind you, what’s in it for you to run as a third party candidate? Why can’t you take over the Republicans or the Democrats instead?
Look at Trump. He’s not exactly a traditional Republican, and he is loathed by the Republican establishment. And as of yesterday he’s the Republican nominee.
Would Trump be better off if he’d have run as a third party candidate? No, because now the Right-wing media-industrial complex is committed to supporting Trump. If there were a Republican running against him, they’d be trashing him all day every day. But instead they’re ignoring the fact that he’s against everything they claim to support. They’re working for him, or at least not working openly against him. He made them shut the fuck up and support someone they hate, because what’s their alternative? Vote for Hillary? When they’ve literally spent the last 20 years literally demonizing Hillary?
The point is, if you’re a popular candidate you run under a major party ticket and win, and then you win the general. The only reason to run as a third party candidate is if you’re a crank, like Ross Perot. Of course, Ross Perot couldn’t have won the Democratic nomination, or the Republican nomination. But he couldn’t win the general either.
Both Trump and Bernie followed my advice, and one of them is the party nominee, and one came very very close to being the party nominee. And Bernie got an order of magnitude more press and exposure by running as a Democrat than he would have if he’d run under a crank party ticket. Running as a third party candidate means you’re a crank and a loser, so people who aren’t cranks and losers and who actually want to get elected don’t run as third party candidates. Yes, it’s a Catch-22, because if winners ran under third party tickets they’d win, but they don’t, so they don’t. There is absolutely no advantage to running under a third party, so nobody who cares will do it.
Until circumstances change to make a third party a viable party. And the last time that happened was 162 years ago with the formation of the Republican party. And even if Trump’s loss leaves the Republican party a withered husk of its former self, there will still be dozens of Republican governors, hundreds of congressmen, and thousands and thousands of local officials calling themselves Republican. What’s in it for them to let someone else take over the Republican brand?
Because even if there is an epic blowout in the Presidential race, thousands of candidates with an R after their names are still going to win office in November. Even if the Democrats sweep 2016 and take the house and senate and presidency and more governships and some state houses, there will still be a gigantic base of Republican officials ready to rebuild the party after the Trump disaster.
Political independents have actually gotten rarer, even. The first two Presidents may have had an allegiance to a certain faction, but they both maintained for the entirety of their Presidencies that they were not members of any political party.
So arguably we started the country off with two “non-partisan” Presidents. The strongest performance of any third party candidate in a two-party America was in 1912–quite long ago now.
From the beginning until now, we’ve had 114 Congresses. If we divide them into halves we see that success outside of the two party system has decreased, not increased.
The first 57 Congresses:
67 times seats in the Senate were occupied by Senators not from a major party
381 times seats in the House were occupied by Representatives not from the major party(or parties) of their era.
During this time, non-major party Senators reached a maximum of 11 seats. Non-major party Representatives reached a maximum of 51 seats.
The 57 Congresses after that (up through our current 114th:
51 times seats in the Senate were occupied by Senators not from a major party
119 times seats in the House were occupied by Representatives not from a major party
During this time, non-major party Senators reached a maximum of 2 seats. Non-major party Representatives reached a maximum of 18 seats.
Additionally, these numbers are not evenly distributed. The high water mark in this second set of 57 Congresses, 18 House members, came in the 63rd Congress in 1913-1915. The only other time it was in double digits was the 74th and 75th Congresses, in 1935-1939 (10 and 13, respectively.)
Some of these high water marks for outsiders even saw things like coalition government in the House, with a coalition of parties caucusing together to determine control of the House.