What about the third parties?

In the past few years, we have seen a decadence of the public opinion of the traditional leading political parties in the United States, moving from a partisanship approach to voting to a personalistic vote based on the person running for office backed by each party. But why, if we have seen this decline in the approval of the traditional parties, haven’t we seen an increase in the presence of some of the smaller parties in public office? And, does this mean that we could see the emergence of new political parties that represent more exclusive and smaller parts of the population of the US?

There are 4 parties that are recognized in more than 20 states, however, the representation of the two smaller parties that are largely recognized is, minimal compared to that of the two large, traditional parties. In fact, there are no seats in the house of representatives that are not held by either a Republican or a Democrat politician. But then does that mean that the third and smaller parties are not relevant in the American political sphere? I believe that given the circumstances and the challenges the traditional parties are facing, this is the moment that the small parties can gather more constituents that support them. The smaller parties should seize this opportunity to appeal to the preferences if the median voter in the political spectrum, those that are in the between the ideologies of the Republican and Democrat parties. The two large parties try to appeal to the medium voter within their own party, which not only causes polarization and misrepresentation in the population at large but within the political parties themselves, thus creating factions with more extreme, and/or more moderate ideologies within the party. This problem has been increasingly present in the political climate, especially in teh 2016 election. There was a big divide within the parties, especially the Republican party, in which high profile polititians voiced their unapproval to have Donald Trump as the nominee for the GOP. This public display of disaproval for the candidate of the party highlights these large divides in ideology and preferences withn the GOP, and poses the question: Is there a break coming from within the Republicans? or is there even the most remote posibility of a faction breaking away and starting a new trend in American politics?

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_political_parties_in_the_United_States

http://news.gallup.com/poll/24655/party-images.aspx

http://www.thisnation.com/question/042.html

6 Responses to "What about the third parties?"

Abigail Belcher says:

April 22, 2018 at 8:32 pm

Santiago,
Thank you for your post! I think you raise an intriguing question, and I have often wondered why the third party (Independent party) never seems to be put on the political map. I think it is because, while there are independent party candidates on ballots at the polls, a lot of people may not vote for them because they feel like their vote will go to waste because an Independent party candidate has never won a huge election up to this point. I think a lot of people who vote either Democrat or Republican actually want to vote Independent because their beliefs may be more associated with that candidate (I think Independent candidates tend to be less extreme in their beliefs/ stances on issues), but don’t because they feel their voice will be better heard voting for one of the two more known parties. However, if people started to realize how many citizens were actually voting for the third party candidate or how many people wanted to vote for that candidate, that we may in fact see a change in our polls and elections, and therefore may even help to eliminate the extreme divide between Republican and Democratic beliefs.
1. Timothy Miller says:
  
  April 22, 2018 at 9:14 pm
  
  Santiago,
  Personally, I do not see a third or fourth party having a legitimate chance to win an election within the next several years. So many people vote solely based on political party so the number of voters going to the two main parties will always outnumber the number going to the Libertarian or Green Party. If more voters voted retrospectively, there would be a chance that a candidate appealing to independents would win, but that is not the case.
  Abigail raises a great point about voters wanting to vote Independent but not wanting their vote to go to waste. Maybe some of those people will vote Independent but certainly not all, contributing to what we see today with two dominant parties. I think it would take either a Republican or Democrat with a lot of popularity to change political parties to Independent for there to be a chance of them winning.
  Thanks for your post.
Paige Jordan says:

April 23, 2018 at 11:21 am

Santiago, thank you for your post. I agree, it is quite interesting how today’s political climate has such a great influence on our national political parties. Perhaps there will be an emergence of smaller political parties in the future that would serve as a departure from the traditional Democratic and Republican parties. Political parties, in themselves, carry out several functions that allow popular sovereignty and political equality to be possible. While particular parties have the ability to adjust their platforms to better reflect the preferences of its following, there is a possibility they may go so far as to break away from allegiance to one specific party. The major divide that exists between the Democratic and Republican parties is not only problematic, but in a way pressures citizens to think they must exclusively choose a side, being labeled with every belief that side holds. The idea that smaller parties, whose ideologies better represent the median voter, could emerge is hopeful, yet I question how successful they would be in reality.
Carlin O'Neill says:

April 23, 2018 at 10:40 pm

Thanks for this post, Santiago. I think that you ask an important question that many politicians, theorists, media outlets and citizens in general have been asking regarding the status of the political parties and the system which we abide by today. While I agree that there is reason for people to believe that there may be an impending faction between the individual parties, I also think that it is unlikely. The two-party system has been in place since the earliest founding of our nation’s government and the only president to be elected without this system was our first, George Washington. All branches of our government have become so polarized in general that for one portion of one party to break off into another dominant party seems historically unrealistic. I believe that there will always be those members of each party who are more right of center, left of center, and middle ground within their own parties and that as these demographics change the larger parties in general will evolve. This occurred with parties such as the Whigs, Federalists, Antifederalists, etc. and can be perceived to be the path of the parties that exist today.
Madeleine Stone says:

April 24, 2018 at 9:35 am

Hi Santiago,

Thank you for your post. I think the issue about third parties being neglected is one that is often overlooked. I appreciate the argument you pose that given the circumstances we are facing in present day society, that small parties have more leverage now more than ever to gain more constituents to support them. I completely agree with this statement. From the 2016 presidential election, I know some people who identify as Republicans that actually voted for the Democratic party because they did not support their parties candidate. Because the election was focused on the two major candidates, Clinton and Trump, I think that a majority of people did not even realize there was three other candidates they could have voted for- Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Evan McMullin. These candidates represented the Libertarian party, the Green party, and the Independent party. The Libertarian party had an upwards of 4,000,000 votes, which is not a lot compared to our population but it is definitely a start. I definitely think if these smaller parties wanted to, and made a more active effort to get their ideas and voice in the mainstream media then they could potentially gain many more supporters.
Elizabeth Curland says:

April 24, 2018 at 1:42 pm

Santiago,
I enjoyed your post. I thought the third party voter turnout would’ve increased in this past 2016 election. Because a lot of people disliked both Trump and Hillary, I therefore assumed a lot of people would’ve taken this opportunity to vote outside the two leading political parties. Since the race is always significantly closer between the Republicans and Democrats, I think people tend to think that voting for a third party will be a waste of a vote, since the third party never wins anyway. I think as long as we stick to the two-party system of voting, the third parties will never have a real shot at winning. However, there is an alternative that could yield higher voter turnout for the third party. If instead of having one singular vote per candidate we could rank the candidates in an order of preference, the third party nominees would have a greater shot. But of course, this would be changing our entire election process that has been around for decades.

Comments are closed.