We work vigorously to cover third parties other than the Libertarians. There is an obstacle. FEC filings reveal 2021-2022 spending by party national committees. We find
Libertarian $4,321,097.42
Green $387,983.11
Constitution $148,293.02
Alliance $18,073.34
Reform $13,738.39
In terms of fund raising, the Green Party is about a tenth the size of the Libertarian Party, and the Constitution Party is less than 4% of the size of the Libertarian Party. Other parties are much smaller. However, the Libertarian Party is clearly the brontosaurus in the room, so it manages to generate much of the news.
Said at less length, among third parties there is one party of the first rank, the Libertarian, two parties of the second rank, the Green and Constitution, and other groups that raise a little money and run a modest number of candidates. The total number of political parties in this country is large; Politics1 has for the past quarter-century maintained a magnificently thorough list of them.
There are also significant single-state third parties. We would like to cover them, but need local correspondents before we can do them justice.
As I’ve often said, the USLP LNC income through the years has been that of a small grocery store.
Much of it goes to compliance with, or challenging idiotic statutes on,ballot access, etc.
It has accomplished miracles with that. The li’l grocery store that could.
If you would like clues on how to strengthen your third party, read my book review of America’s Right Turn on Third Party Watch. https://thirdpartywatch.com/2023/04/02/book-review-americas-right-turn-by-richard-a-viguerieue-and-david-franke/
Absolutely true and we are delighted to have well-written reasonably objective articles about any third party. In a controversy, efforts to get information from both sides should be made.
That’s only one metric, but its also a sign of WHY there is more news about the Libertarian Party. I’m unaware of IPR turning down well written articles regarding any of the new parties in the USA.
And, indeed, they were not tied in income, either. However, there are other elections besides the Presidential one.
Josh Fauver,
Looking at raw votes can’t really be done when you’re below the universal ballot access level because some states “pay” more than others. For example, 2020 occurred and Jo Jorgensen was clearly 3rd and Howie Hawkins was clearly 4th. 5th is where there’s an argument. On raw votes, Rocky De La Fuente was 5th narrowly ahead of Gloria La Riva. You can make an argument that 5th was really Kanye West followed by Blankenship because:
1. Neither had California ballot access as a presidential candidate (Kanye was Rocky’s VP nominee for the AIP)
2. The California ballot access was responsible for 60-70% of the total votes Rocky and La Riva received
3. The California affiliates that nominated Rocky and La Riva were not tied to the national party they were mainly associated with (Rocky was more grab what he could but I don’t think the Alliance Party where most of his ballot access came from wanted anything to deal with the American Independent Party of California, and La Riva nationally is from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, but in California was nominated by the Peace & Freedom Party
4. To point 3, seems like the California AIP are going to marry back into the national Constitution Party which will bump up significantly their vote count.
5. Constitution Party state affiliates like with Hawkins and the Greens did not give universal ballot access to Blankenship
6. On a percentage basis going from state to state, Kanye and Blankenship mostly outperformed Rocky and La Riva
Really the financial numbers show to me that while there are people in this country that identify as Green aa far as voting for them, compared to the Constitution Party, on a per capita basis the Greens have been unable to translate all the people that vote for them into monetary contributions to support the party.
It would be interesting to see figures for the Working Families Party, which has many congressional candidates (although the vast majority are also Democratic nominees).
It’s one thing that’s true about third parties and why there needs to be some delineation between them: can’t fake organization. Even with the two main parties they have county party affiliates across the country that don’t exist beyond paper as far as fielding candidates, raising money, or doing anything. A paper affiliate is a start for growing into something but if you’re paper forever, you’re not doing it right. Granted, part of it is our ballot access laws for most of the country suck and overcoming that is a slog that’s hard to find volunteers for, but even if you went into a performance basis for determining what’s a real party and what is not, a lot of these entities would be lacking. In some Canadian provinces for example which is “any party can be on the ballot if registered”, you’re required to field a minimum number of candidates each election to remain a registered political party.
Might not another way to look at this be actual election results, though? In the 2020 election cycle the Green and Constitution Party were not, in any way, shape, or form, tied for second. Howie Hawkins received 407,068 votes and Don Blankenship received only 60,080. I mean, Rocky De La Fuente, Gloria La Riva, and Kanye West received more votes in 2020 than the Constitution Party candidate did. In 2016 Stein and Baraka received 1,457,218 votes Castle and Bradely received only 203,090.
The Working Families Party’s figures would be interesting to see.