Is third party looming for 2024? Remember 2000?

With former President Trump now stalling in the sixth week of his third campaign for the White House and the current occupant, President Biden, still undecided   whether he will seek re-election, there is a distinct possibility that a third-party candidate may emerge to challenge whomever the two major parties place before the voters in 2024.

If that occurs, a candidacy would most probably come from the anti-Trump wing of the Republican Party if the ex-president is nominated by the GOP. But it’s conceivable that, if someone else wrests the nomination from him, like Governor DeSantis, the 45th president could launch a third party bid himself under a Make America Great Again Again (MAGAA) banner to seek to become the 47th.

Although they invariably fail to prevail, any third-party aspirant could impact the outcome of the election, especially here in Florida, where they have had both dramatic and negligible effects over the years.

The Ralph Nader zenith

The zenith of minor candidates' impact on presidential elections, as well-remembered, was Ralph Nader running for the leftist Green Party in 2000, when Florida was still a toss-up swing state, as did right-winger Pat Buchanan on the Reform ticket. Absent Nader’s presence on the ballot it’s probable that many of the 97,000-plus voters who voted for him (80,000 more than Buchanan), including many of the 1,405 here in Collier County and 1,460 more in neighboring Lee County, probably would  have gone for Vice President Al Gore, wiping out George W. Bush’s 537-vote victory margin that propelled him to the White House.

The  impact of the other most recent prominent third-party presidential hopefuls has been muted here.

Ross Perot, as an Independent, achieved 19 percent of the vote in Florida in 1992, paralleling his national figure. But while the first President Bush attributed his loss to Bill Clinton to Perot’s candidacy, he nonetheless narrowly prevailed in this state. And four years later Perot drew about half of that percentage, which did not affect Bill Clinton’s sizeable victory over Bob Dole here and around the country.

A generation earlier George Wallace, a few years removed from his “segregation forever” mantra and running a racist-oriented campaign on the American Independent ticket, nearly equaled the vote total in Florida of Democrat Hubert Humphrey, but Richard Nixon easily prevailed in this state on his way to a narrow national triumph, and he probably would have won by an even larger margin without Wallace on the ballot.

Similarly, in 1948, another racially hued third-party campaign by Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, attracted a large share of the vote, mainly from traditional old-line  Democrats, but not enough to overcome Harry Truman’s solid victory in this state over Republican Thomas Dewey, which helped him win the election.

Strategic goals

Even when they don’t come close at the polls, third-party candidates set their sights on affecting elections in other ways. Their presence can change the strategies, usually adversely, for one of the major candidates.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s campaign disregarded Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein (and Libertarian Gary Johnson, too). While Stein did not affect Trump’s large victory here, the votes she won were enough to deprive the Democrat of victories in three key battleground states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and  Wisconsin — which provided Trump’s path to victory.

In 1980, the presence of Independent candidate John Anderson goaded an unwilling incumbent Jimmy Carter to debate challenger Ronald Reagan, which went badly for the incumbent, well for the challenger, and contributed to Reagan's late surge to a convincing victory.

All of these candidates and their third parties were one and done, withering away after the respective elections. The same may occur if an interloper to the two parties— a never-Trumper, the ex-president himself, or someone else — tries to crash the election next year.

If they do, they may paraphrase the popular song of the 1960’s of late songstress Lesley Gore (no relation to the former vice president): “It’s their parties, but I’ll try if I want to.”

Marshall H. Tanick of Naples is a constitutional law attorney.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Is third party looming for 2024?  Remember 2000?