Miscellaneous
Of registered voters in the United States, almost 40% are Democrats and almost 30% are Republicans. That means around 30%, or around 34 million people, fall outside these two political parties. How come we only think of elephants and donkeys when we think of politics? In this episode of the Pertinent Information Podcast, Josh Sopko and I talk about why we are in the political party situation we are in, how did we get here, and how do we get away from this standard? We go into recent third-party candidate wins, the history of political parties, other voting systems, and more. Data: July 2018 Registered Voters (RVs) by PartyTotal RVs: 110,943,417Democrats: 44,242,975 (39.88%)Republicans: 32,570,817 (29.36%)Independent: 31,489,028 (28.38%)Others: 2,640,597 (2.38%) Most Recent Data of the Top 3 Third PartiesLibertarians: 511,277 (0.46%)Green Party: 250,000 (0.22%)Constitution Party: 97,983 (0.09%) Ranked-Choice Votinghttps://ballotpedia.org/Ranked-choice_voting_(RCV) In the United States, it is rare for third party and independent candidates, other than those of the six parties which have succeeded as major parties Federalist PartyDemocratic-Republican PartyNational Republican PartyDemocratic PartyWhig PartyRepublican Party The last time it happened was in 1856 when the Republicans supplanted the Whigs, who had withered and endorsed the ticket of the American Party. In the 58 presidential elections since 1788, third party or independent candidates have won at least 5.0% of the vote or garnered electoral votes 12 times (21%). The last third party candidate to win a state was George Wallace of the American Independent Party in 1968.The last third party candidate to win more than 5.0% of the vote was Ross Perot, who ran as an independent and as the standard-bearer of the Reform Party in 1992 and 1996, respectively.The closest since was Gary Johnson in 2016, who gained 3.3% of the vote running as the Libertarian nominee. The most recent third-party candidates to receive an electoral vote were Libertarian Ron Paul and Yankton Sioux Nation independent Faith Spotted Eagle who received a vote each from faithless electors in 2016.