Almost every nationally-organized party that ran a presidential nominee in both 2012 and 2016 received more votes for President in 2016 than in 2012. That is definitely true for the Republican, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, Socialism & Liberation, Socialist Workers, and Prohibition Parties. It will probably be true for the Democratic Party, once all the votes are counted.
The only exceptions are America’s Independent Party, the Socialist Party, and the Socialist Equality Party.
The Prohibition Party candidate Jim Hedges had the largest national election results for a Prohibition Party candidate since 1988. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/prohibition-on-the-march
Per the latest numbers from Wikipedia, though, national voter turnout RATE is still down from 2012. The increase in voters? Just an increase in population.
America’s Party got obliterated, because it failed to get the AIP endorsement in California like it did in 2012
America’s Party never had a chance with its standard-bearer thinking that he could feasibly conduct a front porch campaign and get any attention at all.
In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally
FINALLY, the Libertarian Party actually GOT ABOVE “1%” of the national vote total! Had they done this back in 2000, I would have stuck with them, but this vote total is only because of this year’s REPUGNANCE towards Clinton and Trump, and NOT because the LP is making any real progress with their philosohy, and gaining permanent voters!
I agree, John. Here in Missouri, the LP has nominated a guy by the name of Jonathan Dine three consecutive times for the US Senate seat. In 2010, he got 3.0% of the vote; in 2012 he got nearly 6.1% of the vote. But this year he only got 2.4%. The reason his share went so high in 2012 was obviously because of the controversy surrounding Republican Todd Akin’s remark about “legitimate rape.” The LP is obviously not attracting any voters to it permanently, but it temporarily gains additional support, occasionally, from voters who would normally vote Republican but are turned off by a particular Republican nominee.
It would be interesting to compare the number of registered votes in 2016 with the number in 2012. A state-by-state breakdown would also be good. Does this info exist in any one place?
Walt, Professor Michael McDonald’s web page will have that information. It takes time to compile it because some states allow election day registration. That hasn’t all been tallied up yet. See electproject.org in the near future.
John, the Libertarian Party also got over 1% for president in 1980. Ed Clark got 1.06%. And the LP regularly gets more than 1% of the US House vote, including this year, despite being on the ballot in only 122 of the 436 districts (counting DC delegate).
Hoefling did not even get write-in status in California. Thus, while they are still ahead of the American Solidarity Party, it looks likely that the very new ASP will beat the America’s Party this year.
@MarkDunlop:
“The LP is obviously not attracting any voters to it permanently, but it temporarily gains additional support, occasionally, from voters who would normally vote Republican but are turned off by a particular Republican nominee.”
That seems to be the case, generally. The LP has always been a kind of haven for frustrated Republicans, and Republican leaning independents. David Nolan, the founder, himself was motivated to create the party because of Nixon’s wags and price controls.
The USA has been paralyzed by lesser of evils math stuff since 1945 (or even 1860)
— i.e. which robot party HACK Prez machination WILL START Civil WAR II and/or World WAR III.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.