1. I think a new party can capture the imagination of Americans if it’s the right balance of social networking and traditional party functions like nominations,elections of officers, platform and resolutions. People need to feel like they’re part of something. There’s no guarantee an effort will take hold, and there will likely be some attempts before a group catches fire. But I do think it will happen sooner or later.

2. More govt ???

   Less govt ???

   Something new and different in the last 6,000 plus years ???

3. I’m not sure if this is good news showing support for an opposition movement or bad news because it shows people don’t know there already is one.

4. As B.A.N. has documented, a new political party is damn near illegal.

5. Trump may yet reconsider running as an independent.

6. What percentage of the voters in the U.S.A. are aware of P.R. ??? — now used by most of the civilized free world nations.

   Exceptions — the STONE AGE gerrymander/plurality U.S.A, U.K., Canada, India, etc.

   i.e. standard softball juvenile questions being asked by the pre-school pollsters.

7. Please God let Trump run for president. I need a good laugh. It will be his best reality show yet. Another has-been jackass in a reality show making..well…a jackass of himself.

8. We don’t need a new third party. We need to vote Libertarian and vote Ron Paul!

9. I do not think we need new parties. As the numbers show, 38% – 40% of registered voters are not in any party. Once open voting with all candidates are on one ballot, most voters will be able to vote for candidates that meet their individual requirements like: personal interest, local issues, you get the idea.

10. #9, the voter registration data shows that only about 27% of registered voters are registered outside of the two major parties.

    “Open voting with all candidates on one ballot”, combined with a law that says only the top two candidates can run in November, is a formula for having only Democrats and Republicans run in the general election season. We know this is true from the data. Out of 775 instances when a minor party member ran in either a blanket primary or a top-two primary, and in which there were at least two major party members running, there are only two examples when a minor party person placed first or second. They were both in Washington state and they were both legislative races. In one of them, there were 7 Democrats and 1 Reform Party member, and the Reform Party person did manage to come in 2nd. The other was an instance when the only two major party candidates included a person whose name on the ballot is “Prophet Atlantis.” So it was not too surprising that a Libertarian placed ahead of “Prophet Atlantis.”

11. @Krist and all,

    In forty-some years of political activism, I’ve been involved in third party organizing directly or as an observer, with these groups:
    Socialist Labor
    Citizen’s Party
    National Black Independent Party
    Reform Party
    Green Party

    There have been many more that I’ve only heard of, like:
    Peace and Freedom
    National Women’s Party
    Socialist Party
    Progressive Party
    Lots and lots of attempts to “recapture” the Democratic Party and return its “leftist” soul. I think you get the point now and might be adding several local variants to this list.

    The point is “We don’t need a single new political party(of the left or right!). We need new conditions and structures that will allow the creation and development of multiple parties from all corners of the spectrum”.

12. Does the poll ask whether those favoring a third party are willing to contribute money to make it a success? Until there is significant campaign finance reform in this country (which there will never be) third parties will never raise the money required to run a successful national campaign. An alternative is to focus on building a third party from the state and local level up, but I’m afraid most rabid and vocal supporters of third parties don’t have the patience or the commitment to do that hard work. It’s easier for them to preen their “conscience” by bitching about the “duopoly,” voting for a can of beans every four years, and then doing nothing constructive until the next presidential election.

13. #10, If you notice I never mentioned top two. I am still working on how it could work and still pass muster with all the constitution issues. What are some of the highest numbers by state? I have a gut feeling in some states it is close to 1/3 between the two major parties and all others.

14. #10 shows why the first step to breaking up duopoly is to get one house of the state legislature elected by low threshold PR in some initiative-referendum state. Incredible as it seems, you gain credibility when you get elected to major office (like state legislature)that can be used to win higher office. “Top-two” would be a whole different environment in a state with a legislature like the one described above.

    If I recall correctly, states like Montana, Utah and Idaho have a history of giving sizable votes to non-mainstream candidates like Perot and Ron Paul.

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