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Over half of Americans believe that both Democrats and Republicans do such a poor job that a third major party is needed


Monte1076

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The problem with 3rd parties.....they get rolled over by our 2 party system.

They don't start at the bottom and work to take control of the legislative bodies first.

They only want to be president--which they cannot win, until the entire party has  proven that they can govern.

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If this were the case then we would see more third party candidates elected.  They only make up about 2% of the vote.  I've voted third party when the Republicans nominated a RINO.  At least I can say I live up to voting third party when I know a candidate is going to be terrible.  The only one I was wrong on was Trump.  

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I think many are afraid of wasting their vote on a third party.  I like some Libertarian candidates, but if I vote for them the odds of a Dim winning go up.

The other problem is in elections not governed by the electoral college, you end up with people winning with 30% of the vote when there are multiple parties like they have in Canada.

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14 hours ago, DaveTV1 said:

If this were the case then we would see more third party candidates elected.  They only make up about 2% of the vote.  

I'll tell you why I think this is. It's multi-faceted.

First, a lot of people think that "3rd party" candidates are sometimes (oftentimes??) a little nutty. Especially members of the Libertarian party. Secondly, I think people are afraid to vote 3rd party, because if too many of them do, that means that the person in the party that they really don't like might win an election.

Let's give an example. Let's use the Texas gubernatorial race. If the candidates were Greg Abbott, Beto O'Rourke, and Joe Blow (as a 3rd party candidate), if you didn't want Beto to win, but felt he might if too many votes were split between Greg Abbott and Joe Blow, who do you vote for?

Third, you have these 3rd parties emerge that try to appeal to everyone, and I think the people who would actually vote for those candidates is a small percentage of people in general, because it's very, very likely that they will have positions that people will like and that people will not like, so in that case, what do you do?

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15 minutes ago, JBizzle said:

you end up with people winning with 30% of the vote when there are multiple parties like they have in Canada.

That's definitely a possibility. And if a prominent, viable 3rd party were to emerge, there would have to be coalitions formed. And I don't know how that would change laws around things like that. Right now, as I understand it (at least in Texas) if a candidate gets less than 50% in a primary, there's a runoff. Of course, some people like the idea of "ranked choice" or "approval" voting.

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2 minutes ago, Monte1076 said:

That's definitely a possibility. And if a prominent, viable 3rd party were to emerge, there would have to be coalitions formed. And I don't know how that would change laws around things like that. Right now, as I understand it (at least in Texas) if a candidate gets less than 50% in a primary, there's a runoff. Of course, some people like the idea of "ranked choice" or "approval" voting.

Right, but if you have a third party it's not in a primary you are worried about.  It will be in the general where Candidate A gets 40%, B gets 35%, and C gets 25% and you have a person elected with 40% of the vote.

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15 hours ago, DaveTV1 said:

If this were the case then we would see more third party candidates elected.  They only make up about 2% of the vote.  I've voted third party when the Republicans nominated a RINO.  At least I can say I live up to voting third party when I know a candidate is going to be terrible.  The only one I was wrong on was Trump.  

Voting third party is voting for the democrats.

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2 hours ago, JBizzle said:

I think many are afraid of wasting their vote on a third party.  I like some Libertarian candidates, but if I vote for them the odds of a Dim winning go up.

The other problem is in elections not governed by the electoral college, you end up with people winning with 30% of the vote when there are multiple parties like they have in Canada.

EXACTLY!!! ....

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28 minutes ago, Monte1076 said:

Whatever happened to Al Gore's "lock box"? Remember him talking about putting something into a lock box?

 

Yes, I remember that lie ... I don’t know whether he said that before or after he said he invented the internet ... 😂

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11 minutes ago, KirtFalcon said:

I would take more GWB years over more Obummer or Plugs years .... without a doubt .....

I saw the daily slamming of him out there by 'conservatives' once the public turned on him for his decisions to do with Iraq and the economy. His final approval rating before leaving office was 22%. I didn't vote for the man, either time, obviously, but I think he was a good man poorly guided throughout his time in the White House, and he was woefully in over his head. 

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5 hours ago, JBizzle said:

Right, but if you have a third party it's not in a primary you are worried about.  It will be in the general where Candidate A gets 40%, B gets 35%, and C gets 25% and you have a person elected with 40% of the vote.

If I am not mistaken Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 with a little under 40% of the popular vote.

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1 hour ago, BarryLaverty said:

I saw the daily slamming of him out there by 'conservatives' once the public turned on him for his decisions to do with Iraq and the economy. His final approval rating before leaving office was 22%. I didn't vote for the man, either time, obviously, but I think he was a good man poorly guided throughout his time in the White House, and he was woefully in over his head. 

As many flaws as he had, he was still far better than Obummer, Plugs, or what we would have suffered through if aLGore had been elected .... 

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