The election rules are stacked against third parties. There hasn’t been a single EC vote for a third party presidential candidate since 1968, and Perot won 19% of the national popular vote in 1992. There are only 3 independent members out of >530 in the US Congress. And fewer than 100 in the more than 7,000 statewide legislative seats.
But if you look at the primaries over the last 20 years, you see the Republican shift from neoconservative to Tea Party to MAGA all happening in the primaries from 2008 to 2016. And on the Democratic side progressives gaining ground in primaries from 2018 to present. This year has been really good for DSA-aligned candidates winning primaries in opposition to status quo neoliberal AIPAC candidates.
The primaries have really low turnout, like 45% turnout is really high.
So your vote in a primary carries a lot more weight than it does in the general election. The status quo wants you to not vote. It wants you to vote third party. It especially wants you to skip the primaries. Focus your effort on supporting better candidates in the primaries, there where the real change is going to come from.
But did you vote in any the primaries?
The election rules are stacked against third parties. There hasn’t been a single EC vote for a third party presidential candidate since 1968, and Perot won 19% of the national popular vote in 1992. There are only 3 independent members out of >530 in the US Congress. And fewer than 100 in the more than 7,000 statewide legislative seats.
https://www.ncsl.org/about-state-legislatures/state-partisan-composition
But if you look at the primaries over the last 20 years, you see the Republican shift from neoconservative to Tea Party to MAGA all happening in the primaries from 2008 to 2016. And on the Democratic side progressives gaining ground in primaries from 2018 to present. This year has been really good for DSA-aligned candidates winning primaries in opposition to status quo neoliberal AIPAC candidates.
The primaries have really low turnout, like 45% turnout is really high.
https://statesunited.org/resources/voter-turnout-since-2000/
So your vote in a primary carries a lot more weight than it does in the general election. The status quo wants you to not vote. It wants you to vote third party. It especially wants you to skip the primaries. Focus your effort on supporting better candidates in the primaries, there where the real change is going to come from.
Thank you , noted