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Third-party candidates have drawn millions of votes and raised billions of dollars over the years, but the chances of any such campaign winning the White House in 2024 are not only remote, they are non-existent.
Yes, it's true that a potential rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump leaves a big slice of the electorate—perhaps even a majority—yearning for an alternative. But try to remember the last time that any party other than the Democrats or the Republicans won a significant share of votes—or even a single vote—in the Electoral College, the body that actually chooses the president.
No, it wasn't billionaire businessman Ross Perot in 1992. He did remarkably well in terms of popular votes against Bill Clinton and the incumbent, George H. W. Bush. Perot won 19.7 million votes, 19 percent of the national total. But despite this impressive showing, like most minor-party candidates since the birth of the republic, Perot scored a perfect zero in the Electoral College. The closest he came to actually putting meaningful points on the board came in Utah and Maine—he finished second in both states. Even had he prevailed in those two battlegrounds he would have won only nine electoral votes, leaving him 260 short of a victorious majority.
Those who fantasize about a new third-party juggernaut sweeping to relevance next year need to go back nearly a generation before Perot to find a minor-party contender who actually did earn Electoral College support: the singularly unsavory figure of George Wallace. The outspokenly racist governor of Alabama, who became famous for the ringing declaration "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," then left the Democratic Party (temporarily) and ran as the white backlash standard-bearer of the American Independent Party in 1968.
Competing against former vice president Richard Nixon and incumbent VP Hubert Humphrey, Wallace got nearly 10 million votes (13.5 percent) and carried five southern states for a grand total of 46 electoral votes. Beyond advancing a white supremacist ideology, the governor's main purpose in running for president seemed to be to seize the role of kingmaker—if he could deny both Nixon (the ultimate winner) and Humphrey the Electoral College majority they needed, the contest would have gone to the House of Representatives, where Wallace could have traded his crucial support for political concessions and influence on the new administration.
Fortunately for the nation, Nixon (who carried 32 states and 301 electoral votes) won comfortably enough to make Wallace's third-party bid irrelevant, and the Alabama governor chose to seek the Democratic nomination in his next two presidential campaigns, without success. His example, however, shows the futility under our Constitution of any attempt to circumvent the two-party system and to actually achieve power with an independent effort.
The 12th Amendment (which was adopted in 1804 after a confusing and nearly disastrous contest involving Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Aaron Burr) makes it clear that to win the White House any contestant must do more than gather the most votes with a plurality, in either raw popular ballots or in the Electoral College. The Constitution demands an Electoral College majority which, in any race with three or more serious candidates, makes success profoundly difficult.
One of the most eloquent and persuasive advocates for a new third-party nominee to challenge Biden and Trump next year is the brilliant former White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan. In the Wall Street Journal she writes: "I can quite imagine a competent third party now getting 35 percent of the vote to the other guys' 32 percent and 33 percent, say." She admits that any such election would "go to the House, causing uncertainty that would at some point be resolved."
But Noonan neglects to mention that the outcome she describes almost certainly means the ultimate victory goes to the Republican or the Democrat, for a simple reason: the House of Representatives is made up entirely of Republicans and Democrats. Moreover, the means of election in the House stipulated by the Constitution make it even more difficult to envision the elevation of anyone other than a major-party nominee, whether or not some insurgent candidate has won a plurality of popular or electoral votes.
The 12th Amendment declares that in the event of a House vote, "in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote...and a majority of all states shall be necessary to a choice."
In other words, a winning candidate must win at least 26 states in the House, with support from California (population 39,000,000) bringing you no closer to victory than the backing of Wyoming (population 578,000). In a nation where most states are today clearly and consistently dominated by one of the major parties, the prospect of getting a majority of states to commit to a newcomer party would be dim indeed. Consider the likelihood of Massachusetts giving up its Democratic domination, or Alabama walking away from its lopsided commitment to the GOP—and then imagine persuading a majority of states to abandon their traditional affiliations in the final choice of the president. It's an outcome difficult to imagine and even harder to achieve.
The United States is still a relatively young nation in comparison to our European cousins, but we still have enough history to discern powerful patterns. Going back to 1788 and the first presidential election, no third party has ever succeeded in its first try in displacing the established organizations.
Some advocates for shaking up the established order like to point to our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, and his world-changing victory in 1860. But the early Republican Party faced a long road to the presidency. Before they even nominated "Honest Abe," the newly organized Republicans had already become the dominant party in Congress (electing a House speaker in February of 1856), and nominated a presidential candidate (John C. Fremont) who came close to victory a few months later. One of the established parties, the Whigs (Lincoln's political home for most of his life), had already completely collapsed, not even fielding their own national presidential contender in 1856.
Of course, today's Republicans and Democrats could also collapse—and many observers believe they both deserve that fate, the sooner the better. Of course, if that happens to either, the likelihood of success for a hastily organized substitute faction becomes much higher. But with all the problems of the Elephant and the Donkey looking ahead to 2024, they both remain imperfect, unhealthy, but stubbornly surviving beasts, not skeletal, doomed, endangered species ready for internment and replacement.
Michael Medved hosts a daily radio talk show and is author, most recently, of God's Hand On America: Divine Providence in the Modern Era. Follow him on Twitter: @MedvedSHOW.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
