Third Wheel or Tricycle
While there have been many attempts within the twentieth century to have a third-party or third-party candidate, two instances stick out and are extremely relevant to a potential third-party run.
The first is the election of 1912, which had its roots in the 1908 election. President Theodore Roosevelt, who assumed the presidency after President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901 and then won the election of 1904, decided not to run for a third term in 1908 as the Republican candidate.
Instead, he chose William Howard Taft, his Secretary of War, with whom he had a close relationship, as his heir apparent. Roosevelt felt he would leave the country in a good place with Taft, and with Roosevelt’s popularity carrying over for the Republicans, Taft won the 1908 election. However, Taft was very different from Roosevelt.
At the time, the Republican Party had a conservative and progressive wing, the latter of which Roosevelt headed. Taft was much more conservative and appealed to the party’s conservative wing more than Roosevelt did during his presidency.
Roosevelt, to say the least, didn’t like this and decided to seek the Republican nomination again in 1912. This was before the 22nd Amendment was ratified, limiting presidents to only two terms. The conservative wing of the Republican Party, however, felt Roosevelt had become too progressive and rallied around Taft, who won the Republican nomination.
In response, Roosevelt formed a third party called the Progressive Party, informally the Bull Moose Party, with his Republican progressives and supporters.
This created three major candidates: Roosevelt under the Progressive Party, Taft under the Republican Party, and Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic Party nominee.
In the end, Woodrow Wilson won with only about 42 percent of the vote because of this split in the Republican Party. However, Theodore Roosevelt came in second with about 27 percent of the vote, the most ever for a third-party candidate.
The second impactful run by a third-party candidate was that of Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996.
Ross Perot was a businessman who ran as an independent in 1992 and as a third-party candidate in 1996 for the Reform Party he founded. In the 1992 presidential election, Perot carried almost 19 percent of the vote, the most since 1912. At one point, he led Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush in the polls and participated in all three presidential debates.
Despite this, however, he ultimately finished third behind Clinton and Bush. However, he tried again in 1996, but only got over 8 percent of the vote.
So, what does all this mean for a current third-party or third-party candidate?
First, we must consider who could be a potential third-party candidate and why.
In both previous instances, the candidate had the ability to run a third-party or independent campaign because of their circumstances.
Theodore Roosevelt was already President, and a very good one at that, and therefore had the status, political reputation, name recognition, and support to form a third party.
On the other hand, Ross Perot was a billionaire who was outspoken about politics and thus had the money and status to run as an independent and gain support.
With the current structure of our system, any third party or independent candidate would have to follow a similar approach, and we have seen examples of this.
No Labels, a bipartisan political organization, floated the possibility of running a reputable third-party candidate in presidential elections with what they called a unity ticket, meaning they would have a Democrat and a Republican as running mates.
No Labels’ founding co-chairman was Joe Lieberman. Lieberman was a U.S. Senator from Connecticut and the vice-presidential nominee for the Democratic ticket in the 2000 election.
In 2006, while running for re-election for his Senate seat in Connecticut, Lieberman lost the Democratic primary to Ned Lamont. Lieberman then decided to run in the general election for that Senate seat as an independent versus both Lamont and Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger, and Lieberman won.
This is one of the best examples of how established status, political reputation, and name recognition can propel someone to a successful third-party candidate.
Then there was Robert F. Kennedy Jr in 2024. Kennedy ran as an independent candidate, although he initially tried to oppose Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination. With obvious name recognition as a member of the Kennedy family, he was able to initially run a viable independent campaign.
However, this really was because people were increasingly apathetic to a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch, especially as the problems with Joe Biden’s age became a factor. But after Biden dropped out and Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, Kennedy’s campaign fell off a cliff, and he dropped out.
Both situations, however, show that while it’s still possible to run a third-party or independent candidacy, the prospect of winning is low, the uphill climb is steep, and the best possible outcome is usually to play spoiler for one of the parties.
This spoiler concept directly connects to the 1912 election and Ross Perot’s candidacy. Again, in 1912, Woodrow Wilson won only about 42 percent of the vote, and Theodore Roosevelt won about 27 percent. However, William Howard Taft also won a decent percentage, about 23 percent.
If the Republican Party had not been split and either Roosevelt or Taft had competed against Woodrow Wilson alone, there is a good chance the Republicans would have won. But since Roosevelt and Taft split the Republican vote, Wilson won most of the states in the Electoral College and the presidency.
Many also feel Ross Perot took votes from George H.W. Bush in 1992, and that Bush may have won if Perot had not been in the race. Although some challenge this, as Clinton had a significant lead in the polls late in that race.
Regardless, this is the fear of both Democrats and Republicans when it comes to a third party, and they both work very hard to try to prevent it.
If a third-party candidate gets into the race and their views are skewed more toward one of the major parties, that party could lose votes and, therefore, the election.
However, all these concepts get to the heart of why a third-party candidate has trouble gaining traction and what really needs to change for it to lose its third-wheel status.
From Third Wheel to Three’s Company
While many people like the idea of a third party or multiple parties, one reason they don’t want to vote for them is that they feel their votes are wasted.
On the one hand, they know the third party won’t win even if they vote for them; again, the second-strongest showing by a third-party candidate was Ross Perot, at about 18 percent.
On the other hand, even if the third-party candidate is a loved former president like Theodore Roosevelt, their votes could take away support from a major party candidate and potentially give the election to their least-liked candidate.
This is not just the case for many people in presidential elections, but also for the election of members of Congress and state politicians.
So, is there any hope for a third-party one day?
Yes, but it would require a change in our electoral system.
In the United States, we use a single-member district plurality system. This means that one representative represents a certain number of people in a defined district. For example, you have one congressman who represents the congressional district you live in.
More importantly, though, is that these officials are elected through a plurality system, meaning a candidate only needs the most votes to win. For example, let’s say candidates A, B, and C are vying to win an election. And let’s say their district has a total of 14 people who vote. If candidate A gets 6 votes, candidate B receives 5 votes, and candidate C gets 3 votes, candidate A wins in a plurality system because they got the most votes.
So even though 8 people didn’t vote for candidate A, they still won the election.
However, if there were only two candidates in the race, let’s say candidates A and B this time, and candidate A still gets 6 votes, but this time candidate B receives 8 votes, including the 3 that would have gone to candidate C, candidate B wins.
This is why many people feel their votes would be wasted, and they don’t vote for third-party candidates because of how our system is currently constructed. If candidate B is the most popular but the inclusion of candidate C will take votes from candidate B, it could give the election to the less popular candidate A.
By voting for candidate C, they take votes from candidate B, who might be their second choice. And many people feel it’s pointless to vote for them anyway because they won’t win. This attitude snowballs for third-party candidates because many people won’t vote for them just because of that reason, even if they like them best.
However, a change in the electoral system could dispel these concerns.
That change would be switching from a single-member plurality electoral system to a single-member majority electoral system with a runoff election. This means that the winning candidate must get a majority of votes to win the election.
Let’s return to our first example where candidate A got 6 votes, candidate B got 5, and candidate C got 3. No candidate would win in a majority electoral system because no candidate got the majority of votes. Because of this, they would then go to a runoff election. This means that the candidate with the lowest number of votes would be taken off the ballot, and another round of voting would take place with the top two candidates.
In our example, no candidate got a majority, so candidate C would be taken off the ballot, and a second-round election would occur with candidates A and B. The winner of that election, who gets the majority or meets another criterion, like maybe a plurality this time in the runoff election, wins the election. In the case of a tie, there would be a criterion as well.
This would eliminate the major concerns many have about third parties and give a third-party or independent candidate a real chance of winning elections. People would not have to worry about wasting their votes on a third-party candidate or about them taking votes away from another particular candidate.
There are many ways to adapt this system to address other concerns as well, such as requiring a second runoff election if no candidate wins an outright majority. There is also a preferential or instant runoff system, where voters rank their candidates from first to last, called ranked-choice voting. But just the introduction of any type of majority system with a run-off could help change the game for third parties and independents.
And while it may sound like a theoretical shift, several states are already implementing some form of change. Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana already hold runoff elections in their general elections, and ten states use them in their primary elections.
If the 47 other states implement this type of system in their general elections, it could seriously impact the viability of third-party and multiple-party candidates nationwide.
However, this dynamic would be more difficult in presidential elections, where the winner must already secure a majority of Electoral College votes to win. If no presidential candidate reaches the required 270-vote majority, the 12th Amendment mandates that the election go to the House of Representatives to choose the president.
With a strong third party, a deadlocked electoral college becomes much more likely. And unfortunately for third parties, the House of Representatives would almost certainly not vote for them. Under the 12th Amendment, representatives do not vote individually; instead, each state delegation casts a single, unified vote. Because these delegations are reliably controlled by either a Democratic or Republican majority, they would naturally select their own party’s nominee.
While amending long-standing constitutional frameworks is something I almost never advocate for, this specific case may be an exception. Replacing the House procedure with a national popular runoff could make the system more democratic, less partisan, and far more reflective of the will of the voters. Furthermore, it would finally make a third-party candidate viable for the presidency, something that could truly change the nature of our politics for the better.
However, achieving all this at the state and national levels is a steep climb. Mainly because the two major parties are not in the business of surrendering their duopoly by implementing these changes; that’s one thing they do agree on.
But the more polarized the parties become, the more citizens need to call for these types of changes.
These changes could reduce the combative nature of our extreme party politics and introduce new parties and new voices while preserving our system of government. And as I said, it’s already implemented in some states, so other states could be pressured into putting a referendum on the ballot to change this in their state.
But whatever the best solution may be, third parties do face an uphill battle, and although there is potential for change, they will probably have to remain the third wheel of politics for the foreseeable future.
A campaign by Kennedy will put more pressure on the Biden vote . The Kennedy name is still prominent in Democrat areas. I’m sure Trump will lose some but not to degree of the Biden camp. I wonder if Kennedy is just waiting for Biden to Drop out and provide a opening in the slate.