If, Lord forbid, the two major U.S. political parties insist on giving us another contest for president between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the feasibility of a successful independent/third-party candidacy is better than most pundits think.
This column isn’t predicting an independent victor. That outcome is still a long shot. It is, though, less long of a shot than a first glance would indicate.
History, looked at rightly, holds clues. Just because something has never happened before doesn’t mean it can’t happen now; but, on the other hand, that which has indeed happened before is, by very definition, at least possible. What has never happened since the American two-party system solidified after the Civil War was an independent winner of the presidency. What indeed has happened before, though, were independent efforts (1912, 1992) that for significant periods looked to have real chances of success or which (1968) seriously threatened to force the House of Representatives to make the choice. If just a few things had developed differently in each of those three years, the “never happened” really could have happened after all.
The most relevant comparison is 1992, when less than five months before Election Day, billionaire Ross Perot was running in first place (39%) in polls against the elder George Bush (31%) and Bill Clinton (25%). There’s no way to tell if his lead could have held: After making some semi-bizarre comments, he suddenly announced in July he was dropping out of the race. When he re-entered the race some weeks later, he again began rising in the polls until sounding full-on loony by, among other craziness, accusing Republican operatives of plotting to disrupt his daughter’s wedding.
Despite all that outright nuttiness, Perot still received 19% of the vote. He did that when less than 40% of voters said they considered themselves independents, whereas by last summer, that number reached a record 47%. And Perot was running against an incumbent who just 15 months earlier had enjoyed an 89% approval rating nationwide, whereas now both of the two presumed party nominees have consistently suffered from the lowest approval ratings in presidential history.
In sum, the ground now is far more fertile for an independent candidate than it was when Perot surged atop the polls in 1992. Indeed, numerous polls in the past year have shown nearly half of voters say they would consider voting for an indy.
A successful independent ticket would need to pull support from a reasonably wide part of the American spectrum, with aspects appealing both to voters who usually lean right and those who tend leftward. Any ticket that can pull about a third of the voters could, depending on where (geographically) those voters come from, conceivably win enough states to win the election or to force a series of tough votes in the House of Representatives.
Former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney is almost universally known and is strongly admired by about a third of the electorate. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is widely known and always has polled quite well. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has forged a centrist reputation that fits the right profile. Former Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan and current Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH), though not as well known, both are able, engaging politicians. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) is conservative enough to dig even more into Trump’s base than others on this list while showing an integrity and dogged independence that could earn moderate Democratic votes. Gov. Andy Beshear (R-KY) just won reelection in heavily Republican Kentucky. Several former military leaders could make strong, nonpartisan presentations.
If independent recruiters poll carefully and find the right two-person combination from this list, an independent bid could gain traction. It especially could do well if it finds a unique, substantive issue that catches the public imagination. It could just take a knack for identifying an important issue and, by using the right words and verve, suddenly making voters care about it.
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Astute Democratic pollster Mark Penn thinks an independent bid could work. Legendary Democratic consultant James Carville, whose political analysis is usually on target no matter what one thinks of his policy preferences, says an indy bid “is going to get a lot of f***ing votes in 2024.” Longtime Republican adviser David Winston also thinks such an attempt has potential.
All three of them are right. And voters would be wise to embrace an independent campaign, A constructive alternative is better than a Biden-Trump race to the bottom.