created by scotlandtime205 on 05/03/2025 at 22:00 UTC
82 upvotes, 19 top-level comments (showing 19)
Most third-party efforts in the U.S. aim for national races—Presidency, Senate, Congress—where they rarely gain traction. Meanwhile, state governments control huge aspects of daily life, yet every state election is still dominated by the same two national parties.
Why don’t we see third parties that focus only on state elections, running candidates for governor and the state legislature without trying to compete federally (at all)? A party that exists entirely at the state level wouldn’t force voters to abandon their national party affiliations for federal races, and it could create a platform designed specifically for the state rather than copying national party agendas.
I get that **Duverger’s Law** and **First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) voting** push toward a two-party system, but wouldn’t those effects be weaker at the state level, especially in places with strong independent or swing-state voting patterns? Ballot access laws and funding could also be challenges, but are they really insurmountable compared to what national third parties face?
Are there other legal, financial, or political barriers I’m not considering? Or is it just that no one has taken a serious shot at it? Would something like this actually stand a chance of breaking through? Curious to hear people’s thoughts—what am I missing?
Comment by AutoModerator at 05/03/2025 at 22:00 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
A reminder for everyone[1]. This is a subreddit for genuine discussion:
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDiscussion/comments/4479er/rules_explanations_and_reminders/
Violators will be fed to the bear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2: /message/compose/?to=/r/PoliticalDiscussion
Comment by mypoliticalvoice at 06/03/2025 at 04:36 UTC*
133 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Because most third parties are hobbies and grifting operations.
In the last election we learned that the Green party leadership is bought and paid for by the Republican party. I hope their constituents will remember this in the next election, but I doubt it.
Edit to clarify: I'm saying that if third parties were serious about changing the country, they would do what OP suggests and start by winning seats at the local level and working up.
Comment by illegalmorality at 06/03/2025 at 08:04 UTC*
12 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I made a slide presentation on exactly this premise.[1] In my personal opinion its because there's a lack of serious direction among third parties. Here's a summary of what they can do:
1. Ban plurality voting, and replace it with approval - Its the "easiest", cheapest, and simplest reform to do. And should largely be the 'bare minimum' of reforms that can adopted easily at every local level.
2. Lower the threshold for preferential voting referendums - So that Star and Ranked advocates can be happy. I'm fine with other preferential type ballots, I just think its too difficult to adopt. Approval is easier and should be the default, but we should make different methods easier to implement.
3. Put names in front of candidates names - This won't get too much pushback, and would formally make people think more along party lines similar to how Europe votes.
4. Lower threshold for third parties - It would give smaller parties a winning chance. With the parties in ballot names, it coalesces the idea of multiple parties.
5. Unified Primaries & Top-Two Runoff[2] - Which I feel would be easier to implement after more third parties become commonplace.
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl5KkUUjQXg&ab_channel=EqualVoteCoalition
6. Adopt Unicameral Legislatures - It makes bureaucracy easier and less partisan.
7. Allow the Unicameral Legislature to elect the Attorney General - Congresses will never vote for Heads of State the way that Europe does. So letting them elect Attorney Generals empowers Unicameral Congresses in a non-disruptive way.
8. Adopt Proportional Representation[3] - This would finally eliminate the winner-take-all system, and give power to smaller voices by guaranteeing Senate seats proportional to how many votes they receive.
3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CU3F3ToIIg
Comment by Kronzypantz at 06/03/2025 at 04:46 UTC
39 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Funding and ballot access. Even participating in down ballot races usually requires either a vote threshold in the presidential race, or a massive signature collecting drive every campaign season which is liable to all kinds of malicious regulations
Comment by socialistrob at 06/03/2025 at 07:40 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
When people think of parties often times they think of a label and a platform but there's a whole lot more that goes into them. Across the US there are thousands of local party headquarters for the Dems and the Republicans with tens of thousands of volunteers who often do the thankless job of organizing the party. There are databases of voters, donor lists, candidates for every conceivable office, a network of campaign staffers ect. These are all very real tangible things and they, maybe even more than Duverger's law, keep the Democrats and the Republicans in power.
If a third party wanted to get going and make a serious attempt to build real power they would need to recruit A LOT of good candidates. They would need to be able to bring in a lot of money from donors, they would need campaign staff, they would need offices and chairs and laptops and voter data and the rest. Getting that up and running is HARD and it takes a lot of dedicated people plus a lot of resources.
On the other hand it's actually not that difficult to take over an existing party. If you can go out and get candidates aligned with you to win primaries then suddenly you inherit most of those offices, volunteers, staff networks, donor lists ect. The candidates that are interested in real change are more likely to run as a member of a major party and then try to take over the party than they are to try to build an entire movement from the ground up.
Comment by JDogg126 at 06/03/2025 at 14:13 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Money. It’s about the money These candidates get paid by major party donors specifically to target certain demographics. Their goal is to get people to throw away their votes on a third party candidate instead of voting for the major party that closest aligns with their interests.
Comment by 8to24 at 06/03/2025 at 13:10 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The type of personalities which best lend themselves to seeking political office are narcissistic and grandiose. Many politicians aren't interested in governance. They are fixated on power and influence. Fixated on having leader attributes.
The best sort of candidate to be a Mayor is someone with a background in city planning and infrastructure. Someone interested in public transportation design, multi family zoning, sanitation, etc. That is seldom the sort of person elected. Instead we end up with Former Prosecutors, Sheriff's, and Military Officers who promise to be tough and kick butt. It is very difficult for a soft spoken U.S. History professor with a specialty in ethics (a nerd) to win an election against a gregarious millionaire that beats their chest.
Individuals who are truly interested in improving local conditions seldom get elected. Rather they end up applying for administration positions at various municipalities and do their best to keep the water clean and lights on.
Comment by Lefaid at 06/03/2025 at 12:31 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The Vermont Progressive Party does this. They also benefit from many Vermont districts having more than one representative elected at once.
I think the Libertarian and Green Party fail to do this because they are not serious organisations. If they were, they would pick solid red or blue communities and run there. That would greatly further their agenda to make the big parties support their pet policies and allow them a chance to actually hold office.
Comment by Y0___0Y at 06/03/2025 at 16:15 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I imagine your suggestion would be the best way for a third party to gain legitimacy.
But the problem is, ever since the Republican Party made citizens united the law of the land in 2012, it is almost impossible to win an election without corporate money.
Even if third parties took corporate money, building a corporate donor base is very hard work, especially when your party can’t win. You would need to find corporate donors who are fed up with both parties and want to support a 3rd party out of protest. And there aren’t many like that. Most donate to both parties.
Citizens United solidified the 2 party system.
But it can be overruled. Only if enough Democrat president are elexted over the jext few decades.
Democrats opposed Citizens United. They tried to stop it. They rallied against it. If you want corporate money out of politics, vote Democrat.
Comment by 0zymandeus at 06/03/2025 at 04:43 UTC
12 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Most 3rd party operations are funded by one of the two major parties as an attempt to split votes from the other.
And by that I mean Republicans try to split votes from dems, because the dems can barely run their own primaries.
Comment by Dell_Hell at 06/03/2025 at 05:46 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Because the grifting is better at a national scale.
Most of them it seems are just a racket for self promotion.
Comment by Funky0ne at 06/03/2025 at 12:29 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
In America’s election system, you are better off trying to win a primary as a new faction within one of the existing parties (see tea party, or MAGA for republicans) than as an entirely new and separate party.
Democrats and Republicans are both basically big tent coalition parties, though republicans are much better about aligning and operating in unison behind party leadership, whatever it might be, than the Democrats are.
Comment by thatslmfb at 07/03/2025 at 02:25 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They need to, it's the only way to build a third party that can have a chance.
Comment by davida_usa at 06/03/2025 at 13:14 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
As a former third-party candidate for state legislator and leader of a state third party (the Independence Party of Minnesota), I can tell you one main reason: many voters do not pay attention to down ballot candidates -- they determine who they're voting for at the top of the ticket and then pay little attention to the rest of their votes.
As background, the Independence Party is a moderate party (fiscally conservative, socially liberal) that grew out of Ross Perot's Reform Party, elected one governor (Jesse Ventura) during the transition out of the Reform Party (and briefly had a US Senator), ran very strong gubernatorial candidates in 2004 and 2008 but never secured much more than 20% of the statewide vote (in my heavily Republican district, I won 16% of the vote in 2004). Despite having arguably the best candidates, I think our party's lack of success was in large part attributable to attention being focused on the 2004 Bush vs. Gore and 2008 Obama vs. McCain elections.
Comment by other_virginia_guy at 06/03/2025 at 15:52 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because most of the parties/candidates are ultimately grifters or attention seekers who want to go through the motions of a national campaign rather than actually achieve a specific political objective.
Comment by Jen0BIous at 06/03/2025 at 19:39 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because the federal government has taken so much autonomy from the states why bother with anything other than senators and representatives?
Comment by Fullmadcat at 08/03/2025 at 23:29 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Plenty of them do. The thing is most of the country is stuck in the red vs blue even on the local level. Plus they often get removed from the ballot by the bigger parties.
Comment by t234k at 06/03/2025 at 10:25 UTC
-1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Because us democracy is broken and there is a duopoly of parties that main interest is boosting profits of their donors and interest groups. There's some democrats (and potentially some republicans) that actually have the people's interest in mind and aren't corrupt, but the institutions are so far gone.
Comment by Edgar_Brown at 06/03/2025 at 09:22 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The same processes that produce Duverger’s law, make it a rich environment for grifting. State elections only consider two parties in most electoral processes, making it hard for a small party with no federal presence to gain hold.
In places where party affiliation is mostly irrelevant for candidates and parties have no say on what party affiliation a candidate proclaims, grifters will use the federal parties to gain victims to their own cause.