In all U.S. history, only six minor parties have ever polled as much as 1% of the presidential vote at least twice, and two of those six parties exist today. This statement only applies to parties that had their own presidential nominee, and which didn’t nominate the presidential nominee of some other party.
The six parties, the years they polled at least 1% for president, and their percentages, are:
Free Soil: 1848 10.13%; 1852 4.94%
Greenback: 1880 3.35%; 1884 1.74%
Prohibition: 1884 1.50%; 1888 2.20%; 1892 2.25%; 1900 1.50%; 1904 1.92%; 1908 1.70%; 1912 1.39%; 1916 1.19%
Socialist: 1904 2.98%; 1908 2.83%; 1912 5.99%; 1916 3.16%; 1920 3.43%; 1932 2.23%
Libertarian: 1980 1.06%; 2016 3.29%
Green: 2000 2.74%; 2016 1.02%
The percentages for the Libertarian and Green Parties in 2016 might change slightly before all the votes are counted. They won’t change very much and they are more likely to increase than to decrease.
The four older parties mentioned above were able to see large part of their platforms enacted into policy. This is especially true for the Free Soil, Greenback, and Prohibition Parties, but not quite so true for the Socialist Party.
Thought the Prohibition and Socialist parties were still around as well.
How many zillion gigabytes in the BAN database ???
The Socialists / Communists took over the Donkeys in 1890-1932 — with the now bankruptcy of the USA regime and many State/local regimes.
Technically, the Populist Party also polled more than one percent of the vote in two presidential elections — and did so in consecutive elections. Gen. James B. Weaver garnered 8.5% of the vote on the party’s ticket in 1892 and the William Jennings Bryan-Thomas E. Watson Populist ticket, which refused to accept Bryan’s Democratic running mate as part of a fusion campaign that autumn, polled 245,728 votes, or 1.7 percent, in 1896.
Add to the list the American Independent Party/American Party. 1968, Alabama Governor George Wallace, 13.5 percent. 1972, Congressman John Schmitz of California, 1.4 percent.
First time to last time:
36 years – Libertarian
32 years – Prohibition
28 years – Socialist
16 years – Green
4 years – American Independent, People’s Party, Greenback, Free Soil
The Prohibition Party still exists. The Prohibition Party had its largest results this year since 1988. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/prohibition-on-the-march
May not have reached 1% this year, but it is still around.
Darcy is right, so I amended the post to exclude instances when the minor party did not have its own presidential nominee. Without that qualification, one would need to include the American Labor Party in 1944 as a minor party that polled over 1%. It nominated Franklin Roosevelt and the Roosevelt votes on its line were more than 1% of the entire national presidential vote (496,405 votes, with a national presidential total of 47,974,023).
Michael makes a good point about the American Independent Party, but actually, the American Independent Party did not exist in 1968. George Wallace was really an independent presidential candidate who used various labels in various states, such as “American, “American Independent”, “George Wallace”, “Courage”, “Conservative” and “independent.” There were no national party officers of any Wallace party in 1968. There was no national convention, no national committee, no nothing. When Wallace sued to get on the ballot in 1968, the plaintiffs were officers of his campaign committee in that state; there were no political party plaintiffs because there was no party. The first baby national party organization was created in 1969.
I’d argue the Socialist Party had some pretty decent policy success as well; and not in the hyperbolic “everything since the 1800s is creeping Marxism” sense. The Socialist Party was a relatively moderate socialist party; closer to some of the ones that grew into major center-left parties in Europe than to e.g. revolutionary communism. It was founded as a merger of social democrats and labor unionists, and when it eventually stopped running candidates the majority of the party went back to the “Social Democrats” label as a non-party organization.
So, in that light, it’s reasonable to say they got a lot of substantial policy gains from 1904 through to the New Deal. Not the entirety of their platform of course, not the hardline anti-capitalist stuff, but a lot of the more moderate demands– labor regulations and union-friendly laws; trust-busting; the adoption of initiative, referendum, and recall in a lot of states; massive public works projects, etc. A lot of that overlapped with the broader Progressive movement, that swept both major parties and also cropped up in third-party form in 1912, 1924, and 1948.
Folks should take a look at the END of the Roman Republic in 120 B.C. to 27 B.C. —
leftist gangs vs rightist gangs — i.e. various tyrants, dictators, civil wars.
There was some tribal gerrymander voting in the so-called Popular Assembly before it got wiped out.
See the history book — Outline of History by H.G. Wells.
NOTHING new in recorded world history.
Even with the qualification regarding the applicability of that statement, it is still the case that *four* of those parties exist today, rather than two. Did you mean to say, “*all but* two of those six parties exist today”?
One could argue that the Socialist Party has had a much more profound impact on American society than almost any third-party in American history. Among other things, the nation’s child labor laws, the eight-hour day, Social Security and Medicare — both of which have kept millions of middle and lower-income seniors out of poverty — the minimum wage, workers’ compensation laws, unemployment insurance and public housing all originated with the Socialist Party of America.
Even in its waning years — long after the party’s heyday — the Socialist Party continued to significantly influence public opinion and public policy, most notably in the case of the late Norman Thomas, whose early and courageous opposition to the Vietnam War helped, in no small measure, to turn almost an entire generation against that tragic conflict. Though frail and nearly blind, Thomas — then an octogenarian — tirelessly crisscrossed the country during the sixties speaking out against that unjust war.
What about the 1948 Progressive Party/American Labor Party nominee Henry A. Wallace? 2.37% in 1948.
But that party only did it once.