Third parties

{{Uspolitics}}
In [[American]] politics (and sometimes elsewhere) '''third parties''' refer to all parties outside what are often two dominant parties in electoral politics.  This term is most likely to occur in countries where a [[first past the post]] system and single member districts create incentives to vote against parties rather than for them, leading to two highly polarized and unpopular dominant parties which make up a "two party system".  This is not to say third parties in America are popular either, in fact, they are not, and the dominant two parties have plenty of incentive to keep it that way.

The parties that make up America's "two party system" have changed throughout history. For example, the Democratic Party evolved from the Democratic-Republican Party. The Whig Party replaced the National Republicans as a major party in the 1830s, and later the Republican Party replaced the Whigs as a major party in the 1850s. As of 2025, the two dominant parties in the United States are the [[Republican Party]] and the [[Democratic Party]].

==Third parties that won presidential electoral votes==
Despite the general trend, starting around 1832, America saw a few presidential races where "third parties" got electoral votes.  This included the: 
* [[American Independent Party]] ([[George Wallace]]), 1968)
* Anti-Masonic Party (1932)
* Constitutional Union Party (1860)
* [[Know Nothing|Know-nothing Party]] (1856)
* People's Party ("Populist Party") (1892)
* Progressive Party (1924)
* Progressive Party ("Bull Moose Party") (1904)
* [[States' Rights Democratic Party]] ("Dixiecrat Party") ([[Strom Thurmond]], 1948)

who all received electoral votes in presidential races at least once.<ref name="US election results">[https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-States-Presidential-Election-Results-1788863 Historical U.S. Presidential Election Results]</ref>

The Progressive Party, closely associated with Theodore Roosevelt, was a major third-party effort in U.S. politics. It was created in 1912 after Roosevelt left the Republican Party following a dispute with William Howard Taft over the Republican nomination. Roosevelt ran under the Progressive Party in the 1912 election but lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson with about 27% of the popular vote. Although the party is strongly identified with Roosevelt, it never elected a president.

The [[Republican Party]], along with other small parties that contributed to its formation was the only example of a third-party coalition achieving major-party success in the United States. Its rise was largely facilitated by ''significant'' social and political upheaval and the collapse of the Whig Party. The Republican Party began in the 1850s as a coalition of anti-[[slavery]] groups, former Whigs, the Free Soil Party, and Northern Democrats, and quickly grew into a major party, replacing the Whigs as a dominant political force.

Since 1972, a third party hasn't won a single electoral vote in a presidential election, totaling about a fifth of America's existence.  Additionally neither of the major two parties have changed since that time (and well before).<ref name="US election results" />

==Decline==
By the early 1970s, third parties in the United States were basically dead at the national level. Reasons for this rapid decline occurring in the early 1970s specifically haven't been fully investigated.  It's possible this occurred due to a new wave of ballot access limiting laws which occurred after [[George Wallace]]'s unsuccessful campaign for president that achieved double digit polling, which alarmed both Republicans and Democrats.<ref name="Politic">[https://thepolitic.org/right-to-run-ballot-access-laws-across-the-country-exclude-third-party-candidates Ballot access laws across the country exclude third party candidates - The Politic]</ref>

Other [[hypotheses]] exist such as more restrictive ballot access laws which emerged throughout the early 20th century, along with states banning the presence of minor parties which were dubbed communist or communist leaning during the Wilson era until just after the Great Depression.<ref name="Politic" />  While other factors may also be at play, such as the [[Democratic Party]] and Republican Party selectively absorbing popular portions of platforms and agendas from the most recent third parties (nominally or materially).<ref>https://theconversation.com/us-third-parties-can-rein-in-the-extremism-of-the-two-party-system-162403</ref>  Money in politics is also to blame,<ref>http://pitjournal.unc.edu/2023/01/12/deep-pockets-and-deep-problems-an-examination-of-how-campaign-finance-reform-could-transform-american-politics-and-create-a-better-government</ref> with the cost of successfully running for a political office involving a partisan election often reaching millions (and sometimes billions) of dollars.

==Modern third parties==
Since 1972, there have been a few long-standing third parties in the United States, including the [[Socialist Party USA]], [[Libertarian Party]], and [[Green Party of the United States]], all of which were formed in the 1970s or 1980s, and continue to run candidates to this day.  Since 1972, these parties, and all other third parties are virtually never competitive in partisan races, or races where the political party is listed on the ballot.  This means that the parties that are usually only successful in non-partisan races, such as mayoral or city council races, and they often utilize vanity or issue-pushing presidential races to amplify their own visibility.

==Political choice vs "Duverger's Law"==
When polled, a majority of Americans obviously want more voices and more choices, and are at least nominally supportive of broadening the political party space.<ref>[https://news.gallup.com/poll/512135/support-third-political-party.aspx Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63% - Gallup 2023]</ref><ref>[https://news.gallup.com/poll/651278/support-third-political-party-dips.aspx Support for a Third Political Party in the U.S. Dips to 58% - Gallup 2024]</ref>  But this hasn't translated to the ballot box as often as one might expect.  A number of theories have tried to formalize the logic of this peculiar kind of behavior, one of them is called "Duverger's Law".  "Duverger's Law", is a political science theory which states that the "the simple majority, single ballot system favours the two‐party system" due to strategic voting.<ref>[https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095737871 Oxford Reference - Duverger's Law]</ref>  According to this theory, virtually all voters are "strategic voters" in single winner contents with FPTP because similar parties will pull votes from each other, and so voters will reconcile differences with a party they may not fully agree with in order to stop the most dominant party they dislike the most.  Any party that gets in the way of this is often pejoratively labeled a "spoiler".

===Criticism of Duverger's Law as natural law===
Duverger's theory seems rather uncontroversial on its face because the electoral outcomes it speaks of are a real tendency, even the if logic used to explain the behavior is a bit convoluted and presumptive. One of its dubious presumptions is that there are always meaningfully similar parties in multiple party elections. It has also faced criticism for being treated with "total validity" or as a natural law.  Promoters of the theory usually extend it far beyond what Duverger's stated, by concluding that this means a two party system in such an electoral system is inevitable or that a major party can't be replaced by a minor party.<ref name="Duverger criticism">[https://electoral-reform.org.uk/duvagers-law-more-guidelines-than-actual-rules/ Duverger's Law More Guidelines Than Actual Rules - Electoral Reform UK]</ref>

====Historical counter-examples====
Additionally, if you frame Duverger’s Law as inevitable, the historical US counterexamples (especially 1789-1832 U.S. compared to the rest of 1800s U.S.) make it look like a [[Post hoc, ergo propter hoc|post-hoc]] explanation, or a "just-so story" rather than a strict causal law.  Most political scientists nowadays consider Duverger's law to be a tendency, not a deterministic law.<ref name="Duverger criticism" />

The [[UK]] in general is also seen as at least a partial exception to Duverger's law interpreted in the strictest sense.  Over the last 50 years, an average of 26% (and over 30% at times) of UK voters have voted for "third parties", despite having single member districts and FTFP for their respective candidates.<ref name="Duverger criticism" />

Politics in India are both an argument for and an argument against Duverger's law in general. While two parties have coalesced at the national level, regional politics also use first past the post voting in single districts.  Despite this, partisan regional elections in India frequently involve 3 or more competitive parties, something much more rarely seen in the USA.  In 2024 alone, 744 parties contest in India.  And while politics in the USA is driven by two parties and their nominating process among members.  Instead, India's BJP and INC often rely on coalitions with regional parties, which act as kingmakers in forming a national government.

===Cleavage theory===
Sociologists and reform organizations who agree with Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan's academic work argue that strict or exaggerated interpretations of Duverger's Law attributes power to the voting system that it doesn't have.  They argue political parties arise due to ''societal divisions'', and not due to any ''voting system''.<ref name="Lipset">[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/abs/party-systems-and-voter-alignments-crossnational-perspectives-edited-by-seymour-martin-lipset-and-stein-rokkan-new-york-the-free-press-1967-pp-xvi-554-995/36C109195FA6C45C3184E43470CC8B47 Lipset, S. M., & Rokkan, S. (1967). Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives. The Free Press.]</ref>  From this perspective, the weaker the divisions in society, the more voting system theories like Duverger's Law might apply, but the larger the divisions in society, the more chance of more third parties, and more successful third parties.<ref name="Lipset" /><ref name="Duverger criticism" />  This theory is also called "cleavage theory".

Cleavage theory may explain how regional Indian politics are an exception to Duverger's. India’s caste system creates deep, legally and socially entrenched divisions that structure political loyalties along caste lines, often stronger than divisions seen in the U.S. These divisions allow multiple parties to thrive regionally, as parties can cater to specific caste groups, rather than consolidating into two broad coalitions regionally.

===Proposed solutions to the general trend===
Given the outcome stated in Duverger's law is a real tendency and people generally want more political choices, political theorists have come up with a barrage of alternatives to first-past-the-post voting systems and hypothesized how they would affect voting behavior, including toward previously "third parties" in FTFP systems.

====Instant-runoff voting (IRV)====
[[Instant-runoff voting]] (IRV) is often touted as a solution to the problem, including by the [[Green Party of the United States]], [[Libertarian Party]], and many [[Democratic Party|Democrats]].  Unfortunately, the [[real world]] contradicts theory in this case, and instant runoff voting ''has not'' led to greater political diversity, even in states with multiple active parties and instant runoff such as [[Maine]].

====Approval voting====
A research paper by Aaron Hamlin makes a clear comparison between approval voting and IRV, concluding that approval voting performs better than instant-runoff vote counting to eliminate the perceived negative consequences of more than two-party American politics, "without the fiscal or complexity costs of instant runoff voting".  He argues approval voting allows voters to support both a minor-party candidate and a major-party candidate without fear of "wasting" their vote. This relieves third-party and independent candidates of the spoiler stigma that often sidelines them in plurality or even IRV systems.<ref name=hamlin>Aaron Hamlin, [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10602-022-09381-x The case for approval voting]. ''Constitutional Political Economy'', Volume 34, pages 335–345, (2023).</ref>

Hamlin also argues that approval voting enables a true measure of how many voters back third-party candidates. This visibility makes it harder for media outlets and debates to marginalize those candidates.  Lastly, he argues that approval voting is much more, straightforward, you just check the boxes for all candidates you support. It avoids the complex ranking and strategic manipulations often seen with IRV.<ref name=hamlin />

==See also==
*[[Voting]]
*[[Democracy]]
*[[List of forms of government]]
*[[Socialist Party USA]]
*[[Libertarian Party]]
*[[Green Party]]
*[[Party for Socialism and Liberation]]
*[[Communist Party USA]]

==References==
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