Third parties

Question 1

What national third parties ran in all 50 states in 2000?

Answer 1

The Reform Party
The Libertarian Party
The Green Party

Question 2

Name two examples of regional third parties?

Answer 2

Strom Thurmond’s State’s Rights party founded 1948

George Wallace’s American Independent Party, founded 1968

Question 3

Name two ideological third parties?

Answer 3

Socialist party

Libertarian party

Question 4

Name two issue based third parties?

Answer 4

The Prohibition party

The green party

Question 5

Name two permanent third parties?

Answer 5

Green Party

Libertarian Party

Question 6

Name two temporary third parties?

Answer 6

Reform Party

American Independent Party

Question 7

What was the combined popular vote of third parties in 2012?

Answer 7

2%

This is tiny- insignificant

Question 8

In how many of the nine presidential elections between 1968 and 2000 did a third party play a significant role?

Answer 8

5 played a significant role ]

3 (1968, 1992 and 2000) it could be argued that a third party decided the outcome

Question 9

Did third parties make a difference in 2016?

Answer 9

no

although narrow victories for Trump led to his electoral college win and enough people voted for third parties in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania to change the outcome, it is unlikely that all of these voters would have voted fro Hillary Clinton

Question 10

How did Nader affect the election outcome in 2000?

Answer 10

Nader won 2.7% for the Green party (portrayed as extreme), this probably cost Gore the presidency. Nader had name recognition but lacked resources

Florida decided the outcome by 537 votes, in Florida Nader polled 100,000 votes in the state, polling suggests that half of these voters would have voted Gore had Nader not been on the ballot,

Question 11

Who was the third party candidate in 1968? Were they significant?

Answer 11

George Wallace of the American Independent Party

racist, regional policy for the South, portrayed as an extremist by the GOP

won 13.5% of the vote, mostly in the Southern states, 45 ECVs, this nearly deadlocked the electoral college- significant

co-optation as Nixon creates the Southern strategy of dog whistle politics

Question 12

Who was the third party candidate in 1992?

Answer 12

Ross Perot, won 19% of the vote but 0 ECVs

splits Republican vote so led to a Democrat victory

spent 62 million dollars of his own money as did not qualify for matching funds

his flagship policy of federal budget deficit was co-opted

Question 13

Who was the third party candidate in 1980?

Answer 13

John Anderson, National Unity Party, 7% of the vote, took votes from Democrats

had to spend 3 million dollars of his own money to get on the ballot in all 50 states

He was in the Presidential debates but Carter refused to debate him, this made Carter look weak

bad running mate - Patrick Lucey

Question 14

Who was the third party candidate in 1996?

Answer 14

Ross Perot again

reform party 9% of the vote

Question 15

Why does the Electoral system make things difficult for third parties?

Answer 15

FPTP and winner takes all system

votes have to be concentrated

Perot won 19% of the vote but no ECVs shallow support, Wallace won 45 ECVs but only because his support was very concentrated in the south

FPTP is not designed to benefit third parties

Question 16

How do matching fund rules disadvantage third party candidates?

Answer 16

To qualify for matching funds third party candidates must have won 5% of the popular vote in the previous election. They only get full funding if they get 25% and the main parties get a subsidy for their NNC

This is difficult because:
a) it is difficult to hit 5%, only Perot 1992 and 1996, Anderson 1980 and Wallace 1968 have ever achieved this

b) many third parties are temporary and may only contest one election, e.g. Anderson

These weird rules mean that Perot did not qualify in 1992 when he was attracting 19% of the vote but the predecessor to Perot’s reform party that he created, Pat Buchanan qualified in 2000 when attracting less than 1% of votes

Question 17

Why do ballot access laws make things difficult for third parties?

Answer 17

Third parties are disadvantaged by state ballot laws

different states have different requirements. In Tennessee you have to get 25 signatures on a petition.
In California you have to get signatures equal to 1% of the state electorate.

In 1980 John Anderson estimated he had to gather 1.2 million signatures to get on the ballot in all 50 states, he spent $3 million doing that

Question 18

How does a lack of resources disadvantage third party candidates?

Answer 18

People are reluctant to give money to parties that they know will lose

don’t qualify for matching funds so are often reliant on donations or the candidates own money

have to spent cash on just getting on the ballot

Question 19

How does a lack of media coverage disadvantage third party candidates?

Answer 19

News programmes often do not think third party candidates to be sufficiently newsworthy

the third parties can not afford the costs of making and airing adverts

Most debates do not allow third party candidate participation.
-in 2000, Nader was excluded from the presidential debates. However, Perot was included.

Question 20

How does a lack of suitable candidates disadvantage third parties?

Answer 20

difficult to find running mates

Perot talked of big names like Colin Powell but had to settle for Admiral James Stockdale. He was a no hoper in terms of Washington politics.

Question 21

How do allegations of extremism disadvantage third party candidates?

Answer 21

Portrayed as ideological extremists, may be some truth in this as if they weren’t extreme they would probably be running under the Republican Democrat umbrella.

The two parties are broad churches and ‘catch all’ so there is little ‘issue space’ for third party candidates

Republicans smeared pro-segregationist George Wallace as an extremist with slogan ‘if you liked Hitler, you’ll love Wallace.’

Left wing parties such as the socialist party as easy to smear as there is a deep seated fear of the left still leftover from the cold war days.

Question 22

How does co-optation disadvantage third party candidates?

Answer 22

If a third party does well in pre-election opinion polls major parties may try to adopt their policies in order to win over their voters. Or if a candidate does well on election day their policies may be taken in the next election.

It happened to Wallace as Nixon adopted the Southern Strategy in the run up to the 1972 election

It happened to Perot when both Democrat President Bill Clinton and the congressional Republicans adopted policies to deal with Perot’s flagship policy- the federal budget deficit. By 2000 the federal budget deficit was in surplus and the Reform party had fallen to just 0.4% of the vote.

Question 23

Why could co-optation be a good thing for third party candidates?

Answer 23

depends on their aims

Wallace and Perot probably didn’t think they would win the Presidency but wanted to influence the policy debate- this means they were a massive success

Question 24

How could you argue third parties are insignificant?

Answer 24

Two parties dominate elections, congress, state politics

they coopt policys of third party candidates

Question 25

How have independents in the Senate been important?

Answer 25

Joe Lieberman took the public option off Obamacare, he was an independent but caucused with Democrats and gave them a filibuster proof majority, this was how he controlled Obamacare

Bernie Sanders, caucused with Democrats and got rewarded with Vet affairs chair position

Angus King, caucuses with the Democrats

Currently two independents in the senate, Joe Lieberman is gone

Question 26

Why was it a good thing to have independent candidates in 2016?

Answer 26

two most hated candidates of all time were running, it was a good thing to have different options

(Jill Stein, Gary Johnson)

Question 27

How did Bernie Sanders (ind but was with Democrats for election) change the election?

Answer 27

He forced Hillary to shift to the left

she increased her minimum wage pledge

Question 28

How many independents or third parties are in the house?

Answer 28

none at all

Question 29

Who is the only third party governor?

Answer 29

John Walker of Alaska

Question 30

How much money was spent on advertising alone in the 2008 election?

Answer 30

$800 million

Obama raised £1bn for 2012

The main parties have established organisations for their fundraising

Question 31

How was Bernie Sanders rewarded for caucusing with the Democrats?

Answer 31

he was made chair of the influential veterans affairs committee

Question 32

In Gallup polls in 2018 what percentage of Americans identified as independents?

Answer 32

40%

this means 40% would surely consider third parties

Question 33

How many more votes do third parties receive in districts without straight ticket voting?

Answer 33

twice as many

straight ticket voting disadvantages third parties

Question 34

Are third parties significant? Are they destined to fail?

Answer 34

very significant but ultimately destined to fail in getting the Presidency

they do not fail if their ambition is to get an issue focus

Question 35

What is a two party system?

Answer 35

A party system in which two parties regularly win the vast majority of votes in a general election, regularly capture nearly all the seats in the legislature and alternately control the executive branch of government

the main parties regularly win 95% of votes and all electoral college votes

Question 36

How many states did Evan McMullin run in?

Answer 36

only 11

Question 37

does the Democrat party run a candidate against Bernie Sanders in Vermont?

Answer 37

NO

Question 38

Who is the only Governor who is not a Democrat or republican?

Answer 38

Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, but even he is a former Republican senator

Question 39

Why are there often few protest votes?

Answer 39

Protest votes tend to go to third parties

as there are primary elections there tends to be little desire for protest voting as major parties through primaries are responsive to the electorate

Question 40

Since which year have all Presidents been republican or Democrat?

Answer 40

1853

Question 41

What number of the state legislatures are controlled by Democrats or republicans?

Answer 41

49, only Nebraska is not, this is a nonpartisan legislature

Question 42

Are there any house independents?

Answer 42

NO

Question 43

How can you argue that the US doesn’t have a two party system?

Answer 43

50 state system, as all state parties are organisationally autonomous and ideologically varied

some states are virtually one party states, where one party wins virtually every election

The USA has a no party system as candidates are often more important than parties, divided govt is frequent

third parties played a significant role in elections in 1968, 1992, 2000

many modern Americans are likely to join movements such as Occupy or the TEA party as opposed to being party members

Question 44

How do parties differ within states?

Answer 44

California Democrats are very different to Georgia Democrats

Texas Republican Party, very different from Massachusetts GOP

Question 45

How does the USA break ideas of two party rule?

Answer 45

a two party system tends to see parties alternate control but in the USA both parties are often in power at the same time

Question 46

How does FPTP work?

Answer 46

The national election is basically 50 state run elections on the same day

Question 47

How many votes did Nader win?

Answer 47

Over three million