The Commonwealth Beacon has this article by Paul Schimek in support of Massachusetts’ top-two initiative. He writes, “What about third parties? They don’t have a chance under the current rules. It was more than 100 years ago, in 1917, that a third-party candidate last won a seat in the Massachusetts Legislature.”

It is true that no minor party nominee has been elected to the Massachusetts legislature since 1917, but it is worth noting that Green Party nominee Mark C. Miller, running for the State House in 2010 in the Berkshire County third district, received 45.02% of the vote. Also minor party nominees for the legislatures of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Connecticut have been elected numerous times in the last twenty years, and in Rhode Island, a Libertarian in 2020 received 40.53% for State House district 68.

Also minor party campaigns for state legislature have social utility, even when they don’t win. Minor party nominees bring otherwise ignored ideas into public awareness.