What are the odds?

If you read this blog, you likely have a passing interest in third party politics.  If so, there's a nasty little axiom of political science you should know about:

Duverger's Law 

Duverger's Law asserts that two party systems are favored in a first-past-the-post, winner-take-all election.  Common sense tells us why.  When there's only one winner possible and all the winner has  to do is get more votes than the runner up, voting for a third party seems pointless or could be  counterproductive (if they guy / gal you hate gets in).   Voters tend to self-sort into two broad coalitions and elections becomes two-party races.  The video below explains it all:

Scale matters here I think.  If you're running for Dog Catcher in Gold Point, party affiliation doesn't matter and the field can be large. When the stakes are high, the pressure to sort into two parties is much greater.   In a presidential election, it's virtually irresistible: it's going to come down to a choice between two candidates. 

So - we all know that no third party candidate have ever come close to getting elected President of the United States.  Ross Perot did best at about 19% in 1992 but that's a long way from winning.  We can safely conclude that the odds of a third party candidate getting elected President are zero.  There might be other benefits to a third party of running a national presidential candidate but we shouldn't kid ourselves about their chances. 

But what about other offices?  In some future post, I'll compile the statistics for the House of Representatives and Senate.  In this one, I'd like to look at state governors.  Since 1790, there have been 2,414 governors elected in all of the states (you'll have to do the tallies manually from this Wikipedia summary).   Of these, 82 were elected as independents or third party candidates. So, for governor, we have betting odds of about 3.4%.   So - a third party or independent candidate has a 1 in 33 chance of getting elected governor.  Way better odds than running for President.

Certain states tend to favor third parties.  Nevada had a noteworthy run from 1895 to 1911 when candidates from The Silver Party were repeatedly elected governor to defend the state's vital economic interests.  Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Virginia and South Carolina had viable competitive third parties at the state level for various periods of time.

The bottom line seems to be that a national third party's best chance of influencing national politics will start at the state level with state politics.  

If the Alliance Party is going to effect real change, it's likely going to have to start at the bottom with local candidates running for local office (hopefully more exalted than dog catcher).   I think it's also worth keeping in mind that if one of the major parties steals and implements any of our good ideas, we also all win.  The bottom line is to get on voters' radar screens by proposing pragmatic, common sense, moderate solutions and debating them on their merits.  If we can influence the direction our country takes - either directly through election or indirectly through adoption - we will have done our bit.  

-- Mike Power