Spoiler alert: Third-party presidential candidates sometimes have ripple effects on major party campaigns

(Gray News) - In the modern age of two major parties, no third party candidate has been elected president, but they have affected the overall outcome of races as spoilers.

An example of a spoiler is independent candidate Ross Perot, a Texas businessman who arguably helped Democrat Bill Clinton defeat Republican Vice President George H.W. Bush in the 1992 presidential election.

Nearly 20 million people voted for Perot, according to the American Presidency Project, considered a nonpartisan online source for presidential public documents.

Another candidate considered a spoiler is consumer advocate Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate in 2000, who garnered more than 2 million votes in what became a contested election between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush.

The Supreme Court eventually ensured a Bush victory on Dec. 12, 2000, in their Bush v. Gore decision, which ended a Florida vote recount. The high court held that despite the state violating the Fourteenth Amendment by using different vote-counting procedures in different counties, Florida didn’t need to complete a recount because it could not be accomplished within the time limit set by federal law.

Most recently, Green Party candidate Jill Stein is blamed by some for Republican Donald Trump election as president in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton. This is despite the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson garnering more votes, according to the American Presidency Project.

The Democrats also allege that Republicans are propping up her candidacy in 2024, citing Wall Street Journal reports that she worked with a Republican consulting firm and a former Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, to stay on the ballot in Nevada. She wound up being removed from the ballot because of incorrect forms, CBS reported.

The last third party candidate to win any electoral college votes was American Independent George Wallace, the segregationist governor of Alabama, in the 1968 presidential election that elected Republican Richard Nixon over Hubert H. Humphrey, a Democrat and sitting vice president. Wallace won the electoral college votes of Deep South states Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Here are many of those running for president as either third-party or independent candidates:

Jill Stein

The Green Party candidate Jill Stein — described on her website as “a Harvard-educated doctor, a pioneering environmental health advocate, and an organizer for people, planet, and peace” — is getting more support among Arab Americans and Muslims dissatisfied by Harris and Trump’s positions in support of Israel in the Israel-Hamas war, Reuters said in their Monday profile of Stein.

She said she supports an arms embargo on Israel and an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, which dovetails with the Green Party platform that includes a focus on peace, social and environmental justice. Stein was also the party’s candidate in 2012 and 2016.

Chase Oliver

The Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver is no stranger to politics, having run for the U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2022 against Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican candidate Herschel Walker and is credited for pushing that race into a runoff. He also ran for Congress in 2020 to replace John Lewis in Georgia’s 5th District.

The Libertarian platform, among other items, advocates slashing spending to balance the budget, simplifying the immigration process, changing American foreign policy to one “focused on peace” and ending “government overreach” in healthcare to bring down costs.

Randall Terry

The anti-abortion activist and founder of Operation Rescue Randall Terry is on the ballot in 11 states as a candidate for the Constitution Party, according to Ballotpedia. Terry said he “led the largest peaceful civil disobedience in American history from 1987 to 1994″ and was arrested 49 times.

The Constitution Party said it wants “to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions.” Terry’s website said his goal is to “defend children, defeat Kamala/Walz, and destroy the Democrat Party.”

Claudia De La Cruz

The candidate for The Party for Socialism and Liberation Claudia De La Cruz is described as “a mother, popular educator and theologian born in the South Bronx who has spent her life organizing for justice for working people at home and to end U.S. empire abroad.”

The party blames capitalism for humanity’s woes, including “catastrophic war with Russia and China, climate change and unmanaged artificial intelligence that will replace millions of jobs.”

Shiva Ayyadurai

Shiva Ayyadurai is running for president as an independent, though he was born in India and thus is unable to actually become president because the presidency is limited to natural-born citizens. An anti-vaccine and election conspiracy theorist, he claimed to have invented email, but that is disputed.

Cornel West

The independent president candidate Cornel West, a former Harvard professor and professor emeritus as Princeton, said the campaign’s goal “is and will always be to unite in solidarity with movements of truth and justice, who seek a choice beyond empire, white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and the confines of the corporate-dominated two-party system.”

RFK Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son of the late Robert F. Kennedy and an anti-vaccine activist, suspended his campaign as an independent in August and endorsed Republican Donald Trump. But he still remains on the ballot in several states.

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