United States
In the United States are often known as third parties. Minor parties in the U.S. include the Libertarian Party, the Green Party, Constitution Party, and others that have less in influence than the major parties, which since the American Civil War (1861–1865) have been the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Since 1860, six presidential candidates other than Republicans and Democrats have received over 10% of the popular vote, although one of them was a former president, Theodore Roosevelt.
| Third-Party Presidential Candidates, 1832-1996 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Third-party candidates who received more than the historical average of 5.6 percent of the popular vote are listed below, three of which were former presidents (follow links for more information on their time as president). | |||||
| Year | Candidate | Popular Vote % | Electoral Votes | Outcome in Next Election | |
| 1996 | Reform | H. Ross Perot | 8.4 | 0 | Did not run; endorsed Republican candidate George W. Bush |
| 1992 | Independent | H. Ross Perot | 18.9 | 0 | Ran as Reform Party candidate |
| 1980 | Independent | John B. Anderson | 6.6 | 0 | Did not run |
| 1968 | American Independent | George C. Wallace | 13.5 | 46 | Won 1.4 percent of the popular vote |
| 1924 | Progressive | Robert M. La Follette | 16.6 | 13 | Returned to Republican Party |
| 1912 | Progressive ("Bull Moose") | Theodore Roosevelt | 27.4 | 88 | Returned to Republican Party |
| 1912 | Socialist | Eugene V. Debs | 6 | 0 | Won 3.2 percent of the popular vote |
| 1892 | Populist | James B. Weaver | 8.5 | 22 | Endorsed Democratic candidate |
| 1860 | Constitutional Union | John Bell | 12.6 | 39 | Party dissolved |
| 1860 | Southern Democrats | John C. Breckinridge | 18.1 | 72 | Party dissolved |
| 1856 | American ("Know-Nothing") | Millard Fillmore | 21.5 | 8 | Party dissolved |
| 1848 | Free Soil | Martin Van Buren | 10.1 | 0 | Won 4.9 percent of the vote |
| 1832 | Anti-Masonic | William Wirt | 7.7 | 7 | Endorsed Whig candidate |
| Percentages in bold are those over 10% in elections since 1860. | |||||
Read more about this topic: Minor Party
Famous quotes related to united states:
“What chiefly distinguishes the daily press of the United States from the press of all other countries is not its lack of truthfulness or even its lack of dignity and honor, for these deficiencies are common to the newspapers everywhere, but its incurable fear of ideas, its constant effort to evade the discussion of fundamentals by translating all issues into a few elemental fears, its incessant reduction of all reflection to mere emotion. It is, in the true sense, never well-informed.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“... while one-half of the people of the United States are robbed of their inherent right of personal representation in this freest country on the face of the globe, it is idle for us to expect that the men who thus rob women will not rob each other as individuals, corporations and Government.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)