Kim Iversen On ‘A Major Third Party’

In the above video, Kim Iversen gives her take on why a third political party is electorally not viable.

She makes some good points. 

What should also be said is that this is a structural situation electorally.

In so many elections, not just presidential, the two-party vote tends to combine between 97 to 99 percent. That leaves a buffer of one to three percent combining for all candidates outside the two major U.S. political parties.

On the electoral map, for presidential elections, a third-party candidate probably has to reap at least 25 (but perhaps closer to 30) percent in the U.S. Popular Vote to be able to carry any states.

It also depends on carriage of what.

When referring to past 20th-century U.S. presidential elections, in which a third-party candidate carried any states, what was carried were states normally aligned to the major party closer to that third-party candidate’s ideology.

• 1912 Progressive Party nominee, and 26th U.S. president and former Republican, Teddy Roosevelt carried six states then-aligned to the Republicans: California, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Washington.

• 1924 Progressive Party nominee Robert La Follette carried his home state, which was then-aligned to the Republicans, Wisconsin. (La Follette, then a U.S. senator, was also a previous governor of his home state.)

• 1948 States’ Rights nominee Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat (a few years before his switch to the Republicans), carried his home state South Carolina with other then-Democratic-aligned states Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

• 1968 American Independent nominee George Wallace, a Democrat, carried his home state Alabama and other then-Democratic-aligned states Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

In the U.S. Popular Vote, Roosevelt received 27.39 percent; La Follette received 16.62 percent; Thurmond received 2.41 percent; and Wallace received 13.53 percent.

An example why this is structural is that Thurmond’s 2.41 percent was only 0.04 percent more than the 2.37 percent received by former Democratic U.S. vice president and Progressive nominee Henry Wallace. (who carried no states and no electoral votes).  

I have mentioned that, since 1992, the average number of states carried by U.S. presidential-election winners were 29 with the range between 25 (a 2020 Joe Biden) and 32 (a 1992 Bill Clinton). That we are historically underperforming. (By today’s numbers, that is from the current 50, it would be an average of 34 carried states.)

The structural problem, for the electoral viability of a third-party candidate, is that the two parties have this controlled. Red states. Blue states. The Purple states make the difference with a given election. 

What needs to also be mentioned is that the voters, nationally and state-to-state, have fallen in line for the duopoly. Party identification from exit polls typically have Republican-vs.-Democratic combining around 70 percent. That leaves a remaining 30 percent. That 30 percent is enough to put a color on the electoral map which isn’t red or blue. But turning over roughly 90 or 95 percent of that 30 percent to combine for the Republicans and Democrats furthers the argument that a third-party candidacy is not viable.