For many years, Gallup Polls has been asking members of the public whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or independents. The January 11, 2016 results of this poll are here. 42% say “independent”, 29% say “Democratic”, 26% say “Republican.” However, when the independents are asked if they lean to either the Democratic or Republican party, and then the leaners are subtracted from the independent column, 10% remain “independent.”
With results like this, if the United States has fair, tolerant and equal ballot access laws, which most democracies have, it is clear that new major parties would be arising, or would recently have arisen, to challenge the Democratic and Republican Parties.
But that’s the crux of the issue, as you and everyone who visits BAN know: we don’t have fair, tolerant, and equal ballot access laws here in the United States, except perhaps in a few states such as New York. If we did, the Libertarian, Green, and possibly Constitution Parties would likely be the new major parties arising to challenge the Dems and Repubs. As it is, given how undemocratic our country’s election system is, it’s a miracle that there are even other parties that still manage to get on the ballot in a majority of states in presidential election years.
And even this poll is biased towards the bi-partisan. Gallup never asks those who identify themselves the first time as Ds and Rs whether they’d really prefer to vote for other parties but are afraid of “wasting their vote”, spoiling, etc. (I’ve asked them to try it, but no reply. Richard, anybody, do any other pollsters taking similar polls do that?)
They don’t have this new result up here on their historical-tracking page yet:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/Party-Affiliation.aspx