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Third-Party Candidates Face Long Odds
Americans want a change, but change is rarely elected in WA or elsewhere
from the National Institute on Money in State Politics
A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 31 percent of Americans believe that the two-party system is seriously broken and the country is in need of a third party. (firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/05/12/2311788.aspx)
Despite these numbers, the facts show that third-party candidates have a very difficult time being elected.
In Washington State, 641 seats were up for partisan election in the years 2000-2008, and 1,540 candidates vied for those seats. Of those, 148 were third-party candidates, just under ten percent. Not a single one was successful. Libertarians fielded the majority of the third party candidates in Washington, accounting for 99, or fully two-thirds of them.
In terms of fundraising, all 1,540 Washington candidates raised $152.5 million. The third party candidates raised a fraction of that amount, $248,513. Third party candidates in Washington, then, represented just under ten percent of the candidates, but raised less than one percent of the money raised by all candidates. (This data doesn’t take the non-partisan races into account, since we’re just looking at races in which party is an issue.)
The Progressive Party was proportionally the most successful of minor parties, but Independents won more total seats.
image courtesy National Institue on Money in State Politics
Nationwide, 6,181 third-party candidates—representing some 100 parties—ran for about eight percent of state offices from 2000-2009. Only two percent of these third-party candidates won their races during this time. In other words, a typical third-party candidate had about a one-in-fifty chance of being elected. (A new report examining the details of these third-party races is at www.followthemoney.org/press/ReportView.phtml?r=426&em=93.)
Those who identified themselves as members of the Independent and Progressive Parties were most successful at the polls, while Libertarian and Green Party candidates were the least successful. Third-party candidates fared the best in Vermont, where 14 percent of the 236 third-party candidates who sought office were successful. They fared worst in California, where not one of the 392 third-party candidates won.
Third-party incumbents are re-elected at a rate much lower than that of major-party candidates. One possible reason is that campaign spending by third-party candidates is generally much smaller.
image courtesy National Institue on Money in State Politics
Third-party candidates also didn't accrue the traditional advantages that benefit Republican and Democratic candidates. Only 23 percent of the third-party candidates who were the top fundraisers in their race were successful—far below the 82 percent win-rate for top fundraisers from the two major parties. The benefits of incumbency were also muted for third-party candidates: only 54 percent of incumbent third-party candidates were re-elected, compared to the 92 percent success rate of major party candidates.
Several parties raised no money, won no seats, and put forth a single candidate who was also the party's founder. Some examples are: Ian Bigelow, of the Wingnut Party, ran for the Vermont House of Representatives in 2006. Timothy "Cleaver" Stoddard ran for Washington State Senate on the Salmon Yoga ticket in 2008. Robert Healey, of the Cool Moose Party, ran for lieutenant governor in Rhode Island in 2002 and is currently running for the same office again (as an Independent) on the promise of eliminating the office. Jimmy McMillan ran for governor in New York as the Rent is Too High Party candidate in 2006, and ran for mayor of New York in 2009.
The nonprofit, nonpartisan National Institute on Money in State Politics collects and analyzes campaign contribution information on state-level candidates, political party committees, and ballot committees. Its free, searchable database of contributions, as well as the full text of the report www.followthemoney.org/press/ReportView.phtml?r=426&em=93 is available online at FollowTheMoney.org.
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