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A Tale Of Third Parties In The Last Two Presidential Elections
Did third parties have any affect in battleground states?
In the 2016 presidential election, I rejected the nominees of the two major parties and voted for the Libertarian party candidate. I never voted for a third party in previous elections because I thought I was throwing away my vote. (Which I actually wanted to do in 2016) I also thought third parties did more damage than good.
In 1992 Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton defeated Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush by an electoral count of 370 to 168. However, independent presidential candidate Ross Perot was on the ballot in all 50 states. Perot captured 19 percent (19,743,821) of the national vote, the largest amount outside of the two major parties since 1912. Votes for Perot presumably took votes away from Bush (39,104,550) which aided Clinton (44,909,889) to the presidency.
In 2000 Ralph Nader was the Green Party presidential candidate. Nationwide Nader received 2.74 percent of the vote. That’s a dismal percentage compared to Perot, but the 2000 presidential race came down to a re-count in Florida. Republican George W. Bush eventually defeated Democrat Al Gore by 537 votes, however 97,421 Floridians voted for the Green Party. The Florida exit polls reported 25 percent of Nader…