The Three Guarantees in Life: Death, Taxes, and the Defeat of Third-Party Presidential Candidates
Why Third-Party Candidates Don't Win - and What the Democrats Must Do Next
On July 4th the U.S. could be celebrating its 250th anniversary with Kamala Harris as the first Black/Asian woman President. But she lost the election—by fewer than 2 million votes. In 2024, 155 million Americans voted. 89 million Americans stayed home and did not vote. And 2.6 million Americans voted for third party candidates. Some will argue that if the 2.2 million third-party voters had opted for Harris all of Trump’s chaos would have been avoided.
Yet, third-party voters contend that they have a right to vote for any candidate they choose and blame Harris for losing the election because she could not turn out enough voters. We heard this same sentiment when Ralph Nader ran as a third party candidate in 2000. And guess what? He lost too.
We have all heard the old saying, “there are two guarantees in life: death and taxes.” Many of us can add others such as “the New York Jets will never win another Super Bowl,” or “a broken clock is correct twice a day.”
I would like to offer a third guarantee: a third-party presidential candidate in the United States will always come in third. Between 1832-2024, third-party presidential candidates have finished third in 16 presidential elections.
Throughout U.S. history, many Americans have supported third-party candidates because they did not “like” either candidate, or they vehemently disagreed with the parties’ polices. These include figures such as Dr. Cornell West, who refuses to support either party because they are immoral, promote neoliberalism, and finance the war machine.
Dr. West’s critique is correct. But Americans must view the two establishment parties as “a delivery system,” as my colleague Dr. Greg Carr, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Howard University, has characterized them. Zohran Kwame Mamdani and Bernie Sanders are useful illustrations. The new mayor of New York City proclaimed in his inauguration speech that he is “a Democratic socialist and will govern as a Democratic Socialist.” Like Mamdani, Sanders is a progressive who often disagrees with other Democrats. Yet both use the Democratic Party as a delivery system for their policies.
Sanders has argued for single-payer health care and ending corporate tax loopholes for years. He knows the only way to advance these policies is by working with the Democratic Party. This is why Sanders supports progressive candidates: he understands politics is a numbers game and not a deep intellectual exercise rooted in reading John Locke’s Two Treaties of Government or The Federalist Papers #10. In 2016, Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary; several Democratic leaders opposed Sanders because they viewed his progressive policies as impractical. Despite the loss, Sanders did not abandon the Democratic Party. He knows a third-party candidate cannot win a presidential election.
During the last decade, Donald Trump and the “Make America Great Again” movement have transformed the Republican Party into a fascist, white Christian Nationalist, nativist party. Traditional Republicans such as Senator Mitch Romney and Congresswoman Liz Cheney voted for over 90% of Trump policies during his first term but are dissatisfied with Trump and the MAGA movement. Nonetheless, conservative politicians are not going to start a third party or advocate voting Democrat until MAGA is removed from the party, because the Republican Party is the party that delivers on antiabortion, small government, fewer taxes on the wealthy, anti climate change, and anti Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Recall that, even before MAGA, George Wallace, governor of Alabama, ran for president in 1968 as an independent and lost, but his voters (re)joined the Republican Party in 1972.
Today, the extreme MAGA base views the Republican Party as the delivery system for their agenda. For example, white Christian Nationalists pastors, such as Doug Wilson and Joe Webbon do not want women voting. They want to eliminate all abortion and contraception; and they desire a theocracy. In addition, there are MAGA Republicans who want all non-white people to leave America, only speak English, and, at best, work the lowest-paying jobs. The extreme MAGA base knows the Republican Party is the only party who can deliver these results, but it takes time. The extreme MAGA base will not abandon the Republicans for a third party just because Trump and the Republican Party are not moving fast enough with their racist, sexist, xenophobic agenda.
From 1932-1948, the Democratic Party delivered for working-class Americans. Under the New Deal, working-class people were allowed to join unions and obtained jobs from the federal government. Unfortunately, Franklin D. Roosevelt allowed racist Southern Democrats to prohibit African Americans from accessing resources through the New Deal and institutionalized red lining. But African Americans continued to vote for the Democratic Party because the party delivered some jobs and economic relief.
During the 1960s, the civil rights movement forced the Democratic Party and Lyndon B. Johnson to address poverty with the Great Society that delivered programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and affirmative action that benefited most Americans.
Now, Black Republicans such as Candace Owens love to say “Black people are on the Democratic plantation” or accuse them of having blind loyalty to the Democratic Party. In reality, Black people are the number one and two pillars of support for the Democratic Party, not because of blind loyalty, or because they agree with all their ideas. The Democratic Party delivers policies that the journalist and political strategist Reecie Colbert likens to “harm reduction for African Americans.” In other words, though far from perfect, the Democratic Party is sometimes the only thing standing in the way of Republican policies designed to hurt African Americans.
There are fewer than 1030 days before the 2028 presidential election, and, in truth, the Democrats need to figure out how to win the next four presidential elections to return the country to where it was in 2020. The Democrats need candidates who are bold and ready to fight for democracy and gain control of all three branches of government. Democrats will campaign on affordability, but they need a candidate to promise voters they will right the wrongs of the Trump administration and try and convict all former members of Trump’s administration who committed war crimes and any other federal violations, starting with ICE and their bosses in the Department of Homeland Security. The next Democratic President must promise to increase the number of US Supreme Court justices to thirteen because the MAGA six US Supreme Court justices are not going anywhere. These bold policies and promises will motivate voters and show that Democrats know how to fight.
Once the Democrats return to office it will take years to correct the errors of the Trump administration. There are many Republican voters who may vote Democrat in 2028 but in 2032 will get discouraged and vote Republican, saying, “I gave the Democrats a chance.” There are Democratic voters who naively think the President and Congress can solve their problems in four years. If they don’t deliver on campaign promises some Democratic voters will protest, “you see, both parties are the same,” and may not vote in the next election. But they must remember that the Democratic Party is a delivery system for working people—for livable wages, federal funding for schools, taxing the wealthy, separation of church and state, choice for women, and less racial, trans, and gender discrimination.
The New Deal and Great Society programs did not end racism, sexism and homophobia. To make progress on those central political issues, individuals must hold politicians accountable and vote in every single election. If the Democratic Presidential candidate is moderate, hold their feet to the fire and find a better candidate—because we know a third-party presidential candidate will not win the election in 2028.
Third-party presidential candidate voters refuse to accept the unhappy reality that the United States presidential politics is a two-party system. Academics and laypersons can argue all day about the shortcomings of both parties. A European student asked me, “why are there so many breakfast cereals in America, but only two political parties?” But voting for a third-party presidential candidate (or staying at home) is a wasted vote. There are 192 years of proof that third party presidential candidates will always come in last.
