The U.S. political system operates under two main political parties: the Democratic Party and the Republican Party—but what about candidates who go off the beaten path and don’t fall under either political affiliation?
Third parties are typically represented by candidates who run on a small platform with local support, little to no background in politics, and extreme ideologies that make them unappealing to the moderate voter. One of these third-party candidates in the 2024 election was Randall Terry, a New York native who ran under the Constitution Party.
Terry ran his campaign as a two-issue candidate: anti-abortion and firearms. Terry has been active in the political realm since the 1980s when he founded a protest group named “Operation Rescue,” which focused primarily on anti-abortion rights and protesting outside of abortion clinics. With Terry’s platform predominantly focusing on anti-abortion rhetoric, most of his campaigning for the presidency upheld his strict abortion stance.
As an official candidate for the Constitution Party, Terry promoted his anti-abortion stance on national television bringing his dystopian stance to millions of Americans’ attention. The majority of the advertisements that Terry and his campaign invested in were graphic anti-abortion ads, which were legally unable to be taken down through the Federal Communications Commission regulation which mandates that political campaigning from a certified candidate cannot be censored. Terry’s campaign approach did, however, spark some controversy over the rights to free speech and expression in political campaigns and whether candidates’ advertisements should remain legally safe from censorship.
Some of the advertisements that Terry and his campaign aired depicted graphic images of fetuses covered in blood or deformed in order to promote his anti-abortion agenda. One of these advertisements was even aired during the World Series where graphic pictures of fetuses were shown while Terry talked about “Kamala killing Jesus in the womb.”
With Terry’s campaign relaying mostly conservative views on abortion, it raises the question of whether or not Terry believed that his campaign strategy would win him the election, or if he simply wanted his views on abortion rights to be nationally broadcast and change the discourse of the abortion rights conversation in the U.S.
Third-party campaigns often take on polarizing or extreme viewpoints on topics of interest, such as abortion rights. This technique is usually used to influence a specific topic or policy or bring attention to yet another issue for the Democratic and Republican candidates to debate.
Due to the nature of a two-party system in the U.S., candidates not associated with the Democratic or Republican party face a significant disadvantage when it comes to electability, especially candidates with staunch political stances like Terry.
Additionally, the Electoral College system makes it difficult for third-party candidates to have a fair chance in the presidential election. The Electoral College creates a winner-takes-all-all system which negatively impacts any third-party candidate and makes it increasingly difficult for candidates not affiliated with the two major U.S. political parties to be “in the race” without winning a state, not necessarily individual votes. It becomes nearly impossible to be even considered as a front-runner in the election.
The likelihood of Terry winning the election was incredibly low, as for any third-party candidate, but votes towards a third-party candidate did play a significant role in the 2024 election, specifically votes in swing states like Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Third parties allow voters to have additional options as to who they wish to vote for for president, which means every vote towards a third-party candidate is a vote against both the Democratic and Republican candidates. In some cases, a vote for a third party can make or break which of the two main parties wins a state.
There have always been third-party candidates in elections, but a third-party candidate has never won the presidential election. The closest was Henry Ross Perot, who ran as an independent candidate in 1992 and took a notable 19% of the popular vote. Perot’s campaign focused mostly on fiscal responsibility, opposing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and reducing the national debt—appealing to voters in all parties concerned with the financial and economic state of the country. Although Perot did not receive any Electoral College votes, the nearly 20% of the popular vote he obtained majorly benefited Democratic candidate Bill Clinton.
Recently, Jill Stein, a member of the Green Party who emphasized her campaigns around climate change, healthcare, and student debt relief, arguably brought more attention to said subjects to American voters as a whole.
In 2024, Stein received 0.4% of the national vote or a little more than 628,000 votes. Third-party candidates overall received between 1.4-2.8 million votes and made up approximately 1.5% of the popular vote, varying from state to state.
Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson also made a sizable impact in the 2012 and 2016 elections, gaining over 3% of the popular vote in 2016. Johnson, a member of the Libertarian Party, focused heavily on marijuana legalization and foreign policies, which he wanted to take a “non-interventional” route, throughout his campaign.
Although some third-party candidates, like Stein and Perot, are increasingly appealing to voters based on their moderate stances, some more extreme candidates, like Terry, make it difficult for the in-between voters to vote for them.
George Wallace, former Alabama governor, campaigned under the American Independent Party in 1968. Wallace’s campaign focused heavily on opposing civil rights and extreme pro-segregation ideologies. His political stances appealed mainly to conservative white voters in the South who were against the Civil Rights Movement. He ended up winning five states and 46 electoral college votes.
Wallace’s extreme views, although popular in red states, were not widely accepted and unappealing to most moderate voters not in the region due to the racist nature of his policies.
In order for a third-party candidate to traditionally be electable, they have to be almost a middle stance for the two major parties. Candidates with extreme views and policies face this challenge as they can only draw voters from one side of the spectrum or the other, limiting their chances of winning the popular vote or Electoral College.
Some states have implemented what is called a ranked-based voting system, which allows voters to rank who they want to become president instead of choosing a singular option. This system allows voters to cast a third-party vote more effectively without having to decide if their third-party vote would be a “wasted vote.”
Although Terry did not win any state or the popular vote, his strong views opened a further dialogue between Democratic and Republican candidates on certain issues and raised the ethical question of what should and should not be shown on national television and if the FCC needs to enact the right of free speech and free expression in elections when it comes to advertisements.
Despite the unlikelihood of a third-party candidate being elected, their role in the presidential election is far from minuscule. Serving as mainly influential campaigns for the two major political parties, third-party campaigns raise awareness of lesser-known issues for voters, but in some cases, like Terry’s, these views can be too extreme and polarizing for the moderate voter.
