Political scientist Nick Beauchamp explains why third parties will always struggle in the U.S. — and how there are other ways to achieve the same result.
Elon Musk wants voters to have another option at the ballot box, and it’s called the America Party.
The world’s richest man announced he intends to create a new political party, one he hopes will appeal to the political center and draw in disaffected Democrats and Republicans alike.
It marks the latest fracture in the relationship between Musk and President Donald Trump, whose passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” helped spark Musk’s decision.
@northeasternglobalnews Elon Musk wants to create a new political party in the U.S. Does it have a chance? Northeastern’s political scientist Nick Beauchamp explains why third parties will always struggle in the U.S. — and how there are other ways to achieve the same result. #AmericaParty #ElonMusk #President #Trump #Politics ♬ original sound – NGN
Elon Musk wants to create a new political party in the U.S. Does it have a chance? Northeastern’s political scientist Nick Beauchamp explains why third parties will always struggle in the U.S. — and how there are other ways to achieve the same result. #AmericaParty #ElonMusk #President #Trump #Politics
It’s far from the first time someone has tried to create a third-party contender in America’s two-party system. But will Musk’s America Party succeed where other third parties have failed to take hold?
It’s “almost inconceivable,” says Nick Beauchamp, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University. The problem isn’t Musk specifically — the Tesla CEO has his own challenges as a political figure — but the reality of America’s political system.
Having a stable three-party system in a country like the U.S. that has “winner take all” elections — only one party ultimately wins the White House — is difficult to say the least, Beauchamp explains. It’s known as Duverger’s law: In political systems with two strong parties, smaller parties typically struggle as voters fear peeling off votes from one side or the other.
Whether it’s the America Party or another potential third party, it’s ultimately a math problem.
”The minimum you need of your loyal [party] cohort is 25%,” Beauchamp says. “Conversely, if you’re a third party, you need to win 33% or something like that. So, in a sense, it’s a little bit easier to win via taking over a party and then winning a normal election than it is [starting] a third party.”
Beauchamp adds that a third party has the biggest chance of success in the U.S. if it is truly a centrist party that manages to capture about 10% to 15% of both Democrat and Republican voters. Outside of that situation, it ultimately makes more sense to operate within the two-party structure.
Without any real shot at winning, a third party is just a spoiler that ends up drawing more votes from one party than the other, giving one party a better shot of winning elections. However, politicians can still functionally act as third parties within their own parties, Beauchamp says.
Each party has its own factions — the Congressional Progressive Caucus and New Democrat Coalition within the Democratic Party and the House Freedom Caucus within the Republican Party — that provide opportunities for certain political viewpoints to take hold.
“When people are yearning for another party, on the one hand you could have a totally new party that’s not connected to any of the other parties, but you get many of the same benefits by just having a named faction within one of the parties,” Beauchamp says. “It’s a group of people, they all share similar ideology, they literally get together and have conversations, they enthuse their supporters in similar ways. They’re just operating within this structure.”
Third-party candidates have affected several presidential elections, but never claimed victory.
In 2000, Ralph Nader ran for president under the Green Party. Though Nader only secured about 2.7% of the national popular vote, he grabbed 1.6% of the votes in Florida and potentially took votes from Democratic candidate Al Gore, who narrowly lost to George W. Bush.
In 1992, Ross Perot was an independent candidate and took 19% of the national popular vote. Bill Clinton won the election over George H.W. Bush by 5 percentage points in the popular vote, but Perot’s fiscal conservative policies are considered to have drawn votes from Bush.
Teddy Roosevelt served two terms as president then decided not to seek a third term in 1908. However, he formed the Progressive “Bull Moose” Party and ran in 1912 against his Republican successor, William Howard Taft, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt received 27% of the vote, more than Taft’s 23%, and contributed to Wilson’s victory in the election.
Given the political reality of the U.S., what would it take for a third party to go from just a spoiler to a legitimate player in elections?
Changing the electoral system, Beauchamp says. Although doing so at the presidential level would require revising the Constitution in dramatic ways, there are electoral systems that could be implemented in congressional and even local elections to expand what Beauchamp calls proportional representation, or representation of a wider swath of the political spectrum.
Ranked choice voting, which allows voters to rank several top choices, has already been adopted in several states and cities, including New York City.
“You could have statewide elections and the top seven vote getters could essentially be the representatives,” Beauchamp says. “That would be a way of diversifying the pool and allowing smaller than 50% groups to concentrate their energies on a single candidate. … There’s a number of these different pathways that would not necessarily have to violate the constitution but still allow a little bit more space for other organizations or identities.”