A History of Third Party and Independent Presidential Candidates
This article was last updated in December 2024 to provide information on third-party and independent presidential candidates in 2020 and 2024.
For up-to-date information on election reform, see our pages on ranked choice voting and proportional representation.
While third-party presidential candidates typically only win a small segment of the presidential vote, they often win more votes than the margin between the Democrat and Republican – particularly in key swing states. They are then faulted for “playing spoiler” and altering the outcome of elections. This problem could be addressed easily with ranked choice voting (RCV), already used for presidential elections in Alaska and Maine.
Today, the Libertarian and Green parties are the best-known parties outside the Democratic and Republican parties. Historically, a handful of other parties, including the Constitution, Prohibition, States Rights, Populist, and Socialist parties, have held conventions to send a presidential and vice-presidential nominee to the ballot.
Since the current two-party system has solidified, no third-party candidate has won a presidential election. Nonetheless, they have often played a critical role in forcing major parties to address key issues.
Had RCV been implemented in previous presidential elections, third-party candidates could run and make their case without being accused of playing “spoiler.” Voters would be empowered, rather than feeling there were only two meaningful choices on the ballot. Voters could rank a long-shot candidate first, and if that candidate was eliminated, have their vote count for a backup choice. The president would be elected with majority support.
Here, we will examine the diverse history of third-party candidates who, while not winning the presidency themselves, often affected the outcome.
2024
In 2024, large numbers of Americans expressed their disappointment with the original two major-party candidates, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. But even when Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee, many voters still craved more choices on the ballot.
Several major third-party or independent candidates – including Jill Stein, Chase Oliver, Randall Terry, and Cornel West – achieved ballot access in key swing states. Jill Stein’s “spoiler” status was attacked by Democrats in the final month of the campaign, and even sparked a social media feud with Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regularly polled in double digits before he dropped out and endorsed Donald Trump. Throughout his campaign, Kennedy was called a “spoiler” by major news outlets. Both Democrats and Republicans were concerned about Kennedy siphoning votes from their own nominees, and took action to keep him off the ballot or discredit him, including through a Democratic-aligned Super PAC. Kennedy’s name still appeared on the ballot in several states, including the battleground of Wisconsin.
On Election Day, President Trump won every battleground state and the national popular vote. However, Trump won Michigan and Wisconsin – and the popular vote – with under 50% of voters, meaning a majority of voters in these battlegrounds and nationwide voted for a different candidate.
In Michigan, Trump won 49.7% of votes, a 1.4-point victory over Harris. The six third party and independent candidates on the Michigan ballot won a combined total of 2%, with Jill Stein winning the largest share at 0.8%. In Wisconsin, Trump won 49.7% of the vote to Harris’s 28.8%, a 0.9-point margin of victory. The six other candidates on the ballot won a combined total of 1.5%, most of which went to Kennedy (0.5%) and Stein (0.4%).
Though President Trump won a clear victory, a majority outcome in every state (and nationwide!) would have been better for voters and for democracy.
In Alaska and Maine, voters used RCV to vote for president. RCV ensured an outcome decided by voters’ preferences among the top two candidates, rather than the whims of which candidates made the ballot. In Alaska, a majority of voters chose Trump as their first choice, and in Maine, a majority of voters chose Harris as their first choice.
2020
In 2020, Joe Biden won the popular vote nationwide by about 4.5 points, 51.3% to 46.8%. Maine became the first state to use RCV for its presidential election; Biden won three of its electoral votes, and Trump won one.
Notably, Biden’s wins in battlegrounds Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin were narrower; he won under 50% of votes in all four states. Libertarian nominee Jo Jorgensen won more votes than Trump’s deficit in those states.
If those states used RCV and Jorgensen’s backers overwhelmingly preferred Trump to Biden, the Republican president may have been re-elected.
Also of note, Trump won in North Carolina with less than 50% – though his margin of victory was greater than the third-party vote share.
Nationwide, Jorgenson won 1.8 million votes. Green Party Nominee Howie Hawkins won about 400,000. Tens of thousands of voters across the country voted for other third-party candidates.
2016
In the 2016 presidential election, a whopping 32 candidates vied for the presidency, with the least competitive of them receiving just 332 votes nationwide.
Libertarian Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico, garnered 3.3% of the vote nationwide. This totals to nearly 4.4 million votes, more than a million more than the total by which Hillary Clinton won the popular vote nationwide. Jill Stein of the Green Party received 1.1% of the vote, and became the first fourth-place finisher to breach the one-million-vote mark since 1948.
14 states were won with less than half the votes, including such battlegrounds as Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Clinton and Trump each won seven of those states.
In choose-one elections like the 2016 presidential election , outcomes may depend on the way votes happen to split rather than what voters actually want. If states used RCV, each state would have been won with a decisive majority, and Johnson and Stein voters would have been able to express their preference between Clinton and Trump. If more third-party voters preferred Clinton to Trump in battleground states, RCV could have changed the outcome.
2000
Similar to 2016, the candidate who won the popular vote did not win the election. Republican George W. Bush won the Electoral College by only four votes and won the key battleground of Florida by only 537 votes; it’s likely that third parties played a decisive role in the outcome. Third-party candidates garnered a total of 138,063 votes in Florida, with the Green Party’s Ralph Nader accruing 97,488 of those votes.
Though much attention was paid to Florida, the third-party vote was greater than the margin of victory in nine other states, too. Had voters had the opportunity to rank their vote, the final results may have looked quite different.
1996, 1992
Bill Clinton won the 1996 and 1992 elections with less than 50% of the vote nationwide. In 1992, only a single state – Clinton’s home of Arkansas – delivered more than half its votes to a candidate.
In both 1992 and 1996, the Reform Party’s Ross Perot ran successful campaigns, garnering 18.7% and 9.2% , respectively. Perot was the most successful third-party candidate in modern American history. Though Reform Party ideals align more closely with the Republican platform, independent analyses indicate that Perot drew equally from Republicans and Democrats.
With RCV, Perot voters would have been able to indicate their preference between Clinton and his Republican opponents (George Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996) on the ballot.
1980
FairVote’s co-founder John B. Anderson served as a Republican in Congress for 20 years, and began the 1980 presidential election cycle as a Republican candidate.
After Ronald Reagan won the nomination, Anderson ran as an independent with a “Rockefeller Republican” platform. Early on, he polled over 20% and participated in one debate. He ultimately won 6.6% of the vote nationwide – more than six times the total for the Libertarian Party ticket.
Reagan won more than 50% nationally, but only 26 states were won with more than half the votes.
Entries for 1968 and earlier have not been updated since 2019.
1968
This election was unlike any previously seen in the country. George Wallace, widely known for his quote, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever,” ran with the American Independent Party because his pro-segregation policies had been rejected by the mainstream of the Democratic Party.
Wallace, with 12.9 percent of the popular vote, ended up winning five southern states, accruing 46 electoral college votes. Republican Richard Nixon won 43.2 percent of the popular vote but 56.1 percent of the electoral college; Democrat Hubert Humphrey won 42.6 percent of the popular vote but only 35.5 percent of the electoral college.
It should be noted that Wallace did not expect to win the election; his strategy was to prevent either major party candidate from winning a preliminary majority in the Electoral College. He had his electors pledge to vote not necessarily for him but for whomever he directed them to support. His objective was not to move the election into the U.S. House of Representatives, but rather to give himself the bargaining power to determine the winner. Though he was ultimately unsuccessful, he managed to prevent either party from winning a popular vote majority. A shift of just 1.55 percent in California would have given Wallace the swing power in the Electoral College he sought.
After the election, Republican President Richard Nixon pushed Congress to abolish the Electoral College–with Hubert Humphrey’s support– because Wallace had attempted to do something the founding fathers would not have anticipated.
1912
Republican Theodore Roosevelt had served as president from 1901 to 1909, and William Howard Taft had won the 1908 Republican presidential nomination with Roosevelt’s support. Displeased with Taft’s actions as president, Roosevelt challenged Taft in 1912.
After being denied the Republican nomination in an era before presidential primaries, Roosevelt rallied his progressive supporters and launched a third party bid. Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party,” lost the election but marked the most successful third party bid in history, winning 27.4 percent of the vote. Taft, the incumbent president, did not perform as well, winning 23.7 percent. The Socialist Party also had a successful race this year, as Socialist nominee Eugene V. Debs secured 6 percent.
Four candidates made significant waves this election. In one potential scenario with RCV, Debs would have been eliminated and his second choice votes would have gone to Roosevelt or Wilson. Then Taft would’ve been eliminated, and his second choice votes probably would not have gone to Woodrow Wilson (who ultimately won), but to Roosevelt instead. Evidently, the results could have been drastically different.
Notably, talk of second choice voting grew markedly after this election, with the Nebraska Bull Moose Party actually endorsing it in its official platform (See page 139 of the link).
1892
In 1891, the American Farmers’ Alliances met with delegates from labor and reform groups in Cincinnati, Ohio, to discuss the formation of a new political party. They formed the People’s Party, commonly known as the Populists. James B. Weaver of the Populist Party carried five states, accruing 8.5 percent of the popular vote, while winner Grover Cleveland earned 46 percent. If RCV had been implemented, this election would have had a winner with majority support.
1860
In the 1860 election, no candidate reached 40 percent of the vote. At a time when the nation was so divided, the vote matched the political climate. Republican Abraham Lincoln won the election; however, Democratic voters were divided between Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas and Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge. Together they accrued 47.6 percent of the vote, significantly more than Lincoln. John Bell of Constitution Union got 12.6 percent. While Lincoln won only 39.7 percent of the national popular vote, he did win more than half the votes in northern states that together had more than half of the Electoral College.
While ranked choice voting within the Electoral College system would not have prevented Lincoln’s victory and the resulting civil war, it could have provided a clearer picture of the fault lines dividing the country.
1856
Former Whig President Millard Fillmore, running on the American Party platform, won 21.5 percent of the vote in this election, winning only Maryland. Second choice votes could have either pushed the winner, James Buchanan who earned 45.3 percent, or runner-up John Fremont, who won 33.11 percent, over the 50 percent majority margin.
1848
Democrat Martin Van Buren was president from 1837-1841. After getting booted out of office, he ran a failed campaign in 1848 as a candidate for the anti-slavery Free Soil Party. Van Buren won over ten percent of the vote, preventing the Whig candidate (eventual winner Zachary Taylor) or Democratic candidate Lewis Cass from earning support from half the country’s electorate.
1844
In 1844, pro-slavery candidate James K. Polk ran against soft abolitionist Henry Clay and hard-line abolitionist James Birney. While Polk ended up winning the election, Clay and Birney did split votes. Most notably, this occurred in New York, where Birney received 15,812 votes but Polk beat Clay by only 5,106 votes. If ranked choice voting had been implemented in this election, it is quite possible the country would have elected a different president and, most importantly, taken a different tack in regards to slavery. This piece , by professor Lawrence Lessig, does a great job of describing this election and others in the context of ranked choice voting. Polk beat Clay in New York by 5,106 votes, yet Birney received 15,812 votes.
1788-1844
Sixty-nine Electoral College votes unanimously elected George Washington as president of the United States in 1788. Since then, candidates, political parties, electors, and the very fabric of our country have evolved significantly. As early as 1824, John Quincy Adams was chosen by the House of Representatives as president after earning only 31 percent of popular votes compared to Andrew Jackson’s 41 percent.
