A new Gallup poll finds nearly two-thirds of Americans say the Republican and Democratic parties do a poor job representing the public and that a third major party is needed. The findings are consistent with previous surveys asking the same question.
The poll, conducted this year between September 2–16, interviewed a random sample of 1,000 adults ages 18 and older from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The poll was conducted by telephone in both English and Spanish, using landline and cellphone respondents. Results report a margin of error of ±4 percentage points.
According to Gallup’s results, 62% of respondents said a third major party is needed, while 30% said the two major parties do an adequate job and 8% expressed no opinion. The share favoring a third party rose four points from Gallup’s September 2024 survey, continuing a long trend in which most respondents say an alternative to the current two-party system is needed.
The latest data shows significant differences by party affiliation and age. Independents remain the most supportive group, with 74% saying a third major party is needed, compared to 58% of Democrats and 43% of Republicans. Support was also higher among younger and middle-aged adults, with 67% of those ages 18 to 34 and 72% of those 35 to 54 backing a new party, compared to 51% of those 55 and older.
By education level, 66% of college graduates and 63% of those with some college said they support a third major party, while 57% of those with a high school education or less agreed. Among income groups, support ranged from 60 to 67 percent.
While most demographic and partisan groups expressed dissatisfaction with the current system, Republicans were the only group in which a majority with 51% support said the two major parties do an adequate job representing the American people. Adults aged 55 and older and those with a high school education or less were also among the most supportive of the current system, though even within these groups, four in ten or fewer said the major parties perform adequately.
Gallup has asked the same question periodically since 2003. Support for a third major party has exceeded 50% in most polls since 2010, with only a single exception. The highest recorded support occurred in its 2023 survey, when 63% said a new party was needed.
@Anonymous Observer… I do have to say though, your take is exactly the purist take I’m referring to, it’s why the LP is going nowhere. It’s why the Classical Liberal caucus split off. They have a slightly better approach than the Libertarian Party at this point, but I think they’re still going to have a tough sell too.
What is your suggestion on drawing down the welfare system, so we can completely get rid of taxation? Just abolish immediately once Libertarians have control? That’s burning it down over night. If that’s not the case, nobody (including myself and I had been with the party from 2015 to 2022) has seen a reasonable plan to draw down the welfare system put forth by Libertarians that doesn’t give the sense of burn it down over night. You can easily find Harry Browne’s LP nomination acceptance speech on YouTube where he’s talking about ripping out regulation from the Federal Register unilaterally on day one…. that translates as burn it down overnight.
BTW, the LP isn’t socially moderate in most people’s minds, it’s insanely socially liberal. The Mises Caucus did moderate somethings socially… but the wrong things.
@Anonymous Observer.. Sorry, but I am an anarchist at heart; I’ve read Hayek, Mill, Friedman, Rand, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, Ron Paul’s foreign policy books, The Creature from Jekyll Island). I still temper my personal desires with realism though. I want a fully voluntary society, but we’re not getting there without a slow draw down of the state.
And the policies I suggested in my prior comment move us in that direction… a UBI simplifies and de-adminstratifies the welfare system for example.
A property tax (would be paid with your local property taxes and remitted to the Federal government by the municipalities) and a sales tax remove compelled paper work and remove the administrative state from the majority of people lives. Both of these move us away from the federal government being involved in our lives and knowing about our personal financials. Means testing actually increases the size of the state, because you have to hire a bunch of people to vet peoples incomes. I also think drug and prostitution legalization are plausible if it’s coupled with these more moderate takes on welfare and taxes.
I’ve talked to people for years (I was a social media activist for the LP – Facebook mostly – back in 2016 – 2019), I’ve looked at public opinion polls, I’ve done extensive research. Hard Libertarianism is not a realistic sell in our current society…. A soft libertarian-ish liberalism is… then we go from there.
What’s better a nationalist totalitarian state that is constantly involved in your life and knows everything about you OR a liberal state with freedom of movement, drug and prostitution legalization, deregulation of business, more open zoning, a tax scheme that is less intrusive in people’s lives, but has a UBI?
Americans always say they want another party until they don’t. The “wasted vote syndrome” is the most powerful tool the two ubiquitous parties have and it works. Only a structural change to our electoral system will produce another significant party or parties. Is that going to happen anytime soon? I don’t think so. The two dominant parties control the process to institute such a change and they certainly have no incentive to do so.
@Aiden: baloney.
Freedom isn’t extreme at all, and the LP rhetoric is NOT “burn it down overnight.” It never has been.
The LP is socially moderate, economically free-market, and fiscally conservative.
Reform but don’t abolish welfare? Unrealistic and unimplementable.
UBI? Who pays for that socialist insanity?
Legalize catastrophic care coverage for everyone? Already legal. You just have to look for it.
Deregulate business? Always been a LP position.
Reform the tax code to a national property tax and sales tax? Hard pass on both. Property tax is government rent, aka theft. Sales tax is more punitive to lower incomes.
Leave people alone to be who they want to be? That’s core libertarianism. (But you seem to not want to leave their money alone to pay for UBI welfare and impose taxes!)
What you claim people want is both inconsistent and opposed to actual full liberty. Parts of it are, but more parts of it aren’t.
I suggest that you learn to get past your statist ways and go read Libertarianism in one Lesson, followed by the Conscience of an Anarchist, then watch this: https://youtu.be/muHg86Mys7I?si=cTj6HuWLTxRC4Fon and then this: https://youtu.be/mVh75ylAUXY?si=EyjbPy20lPByj69g
@Anonymous Observer… No, many people have heard of the LP, they just think it’s too extreme. The typical LP rhetoric of “burn it down over night” is an immediate turn off. What people are actually looking for is a socially moderate to liberal, economically free-market, fiscally moderate party. Reform but don’t abolish the welfare system (UBI), legalize catastrophic care coverage for everyone not just those under 26, deregulate business, possibly reform the tax code to a national property tax and sales tax (the UBI acts as a standard deduction and makes it progressive), and leave people alone to be who they want to be. The purist in the LP will never let the LP be that, so it’s not going anywhere.
I suggest giving this a watch: https://youtu.be/6GVMnQ4-_cQ
The LP could easily be the “Cosmopolitan Liberal” block…. but the purist won’t let it happen.
Note for the video since some people have a hard time following what he references on his chart (These are for UK parties and could largely be translated to US parties): The Radical Left = Radical “Remainia” = UK Greens/Progressive wing of Democratic Party; Cosmopolitan Liberal = Liberal Remainia = UK Liberal Democrats/Abundance Agenda (Could be the LP); National Collectivists = Leaverstan = UK Reform/US MAGA; National Liberals = Brexitshire = Traditional Republican Party (and to a certain extent the Mises Caucus); His Labour Party reference towards the end could also be translated to the more moderate faction of the Democratic Party. He also references the “Radical Left” as a “third force” and the National Liberal block as a weak coalition at best and hard to keep together.
Yet they won’t do a damned thing to support the Libertarian Party or have never even heard of them… *SIGH*