Red, blue, and who?: more than just the two main political parties

In such an important election year people don’t want to make America great again or stick with her and instead, are seeking alternatives as they feel caught in between the two candidates.

During this election, both the Republican and Democratic populace feel caught between two undesirable choices.

“Many Republicans ran for the Republican nomination and many seasoned, skilled petitioners were beaten by Donald Trump,” Terry Geoghegan, government teacher, said. “Some of his language and some of his policies have turned off some lifelong, conservative, Republican people. The nomination of Donald Trump has made some of those Republicans think twice about voting for their nominee and, looking with their frustration at their own nominee, are now looking for an alternative.”

With voters abandoning their historically-preferred parties, third party candidates have risen trying to fulfill the space between them. According to whiteoutpress.com, cnn.com, and 2008election.procon.com a third party has not won more than 1% of the popular vote in over a decade, but polls are predicting different results for this year’s election

“Whenever you see a third party candidate or third party [voting] rise, it’s because people are frustrated,” Geoghegan, said. “With the nomination of Donald Trump, that seemed to have tapped into the frustration so I would not be surprised if, in the future, a third party movement pops up. It’s the Democrats’ or Republicans’ failure to address the needs of people.”

Geoghegan added that if voters are frustrated, they may cast their vote for a variety of reasons that others do not understand. They maybe vote with the purpose of either protesting because they’re tired of the bickering of the two main parties, or for the third party because they dislike both candidates.

“People might not understand that if you are voting with the purpose of combining your vote with your political philosophy then [that may be why you vote for] the third party. If you vote for a third party, statistically [those] candidates do not win,” Geoghegan said. “Had you voted for the [other candidate] instead of the third party, and many others like you did the same thing, then potentially that [candidate] would’ve won.”

Despite the possible negative ramification when voting for a third party, on November 8 voters may be leaning towards that choice.

“I think there’s a lot of special cases with certain elections,” Ryan Killian, senior, said. “Especially right now, I think a lot of people are pretty unsure of both the Democrats and the Republicans. People are just begging for another option.”

Who could have been the other option, Bernie Sanders ran for the Democratic Presidential nominee in the primaries, received more votes and supporters, [he served in the Senate as an Independent,] and future voters, like Johnson, recognize him as an alternative candidate who stands against the perceived pitfalls of the Democratic party.

“Something that really caught my attention specifically with me and my friend group was that [Bernie Sanders] really addressed younger people, which is great here in politics because politicians are [normally] addressing people our parent’s age or older than that,” Anna Johnson, senior, said.  “They, the candidates, don’t think that younger people really care and that’s not an entire group they should disregard.”

Believing that Sander’s “views are what a lot of younger people in [today’s] generation care about,” Johnson credits Sanders’ campaign with changing her perspective on voting.

“When someone in the next election comes around that is like [Bernie], I feel it will draw a lot of people that are our age and that weren’t able to vote last time and that are now ready to vote in a Presidential election,” Johnson said. “[This is when] they are really going to be drawn to a third party candidate.”

Since the third parties are drawing significant numbers of voters away from Democrats and Republicans, voting for third party candidates rather than a Democrat or Republican “could be seen as a negative, but there are positives [to it] as well,” according to Geoghegan.

“If the other two parties see that people are voting for the third party, then they are going to analyze why those people are voting for [third parties]. They may [think], ‘well, maybe we can make policy that would attract those people that are voting for the third party to our party.’ So they kind of try to steal [third party candidate’s] positions and along with that, those voters,” Geoghegan said.

One candidate who stole some votes in the primaries was Bernie Sanders. He is a self-described “democratic socialist” and is farther left than any other candidate who ran in the primaries.  In a speech at Georgetown University, Sanders compared himself to former president Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

“Almost everything [Roosevelt] proposed was called ‘socialist,’” Sanders said. “The concept of ‘minimum wage’ was seen as a radical intrusion into the marketplace and was described as ‘socialist.’ Unemployment insurance, abolishing child labor, the 40-hour work week, collective bargaining, strong banking regulations, deposit insurance, and job programs that put millions of people to work were all described, in one way or another, as ‘socialist.’ Yet these programs have become the fabric of our nation and the foundation of the middle class.”

Though eliminated in the primaries, Sanders has backed Clinton and is currently campaigning for her. While they were in the senate together, Sanders and Clinton voted the same way 93 percent of the time, according to the New York Times.

Any political figure that does not fit into the clear cut Democrat-Republican split is considered non-traditional and instead opt to run as one of the third parties, including two other individuals who made it on the ballot this year.   

“Diving deeper, Johnson’s support comes disproportionately from young Democrats and Independents who supported Bernie Sanders in the primary. He’s running ahead of Trump and about even with Clinton with this group,” according to thinkprogress.org.

Not only is the press believing that Trump and Clinton are being challenged by third party candidates, but one of the two third party candidates is confident that she has an advantage in the election.  

“We’re in a very different moment now historically than we were in 2000, because the majority of American voters have rejected both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,” she said to PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff according to pbs.org. “They’re the most disliked and untrusted candidates for president in our history.”

Another impact of third parties is the reaction of others.

“If you voted for a third party and someone knew you voted third party they might think it’s very odd, and you might not want to tell anyone about that. It’ll probably be hard to get that first third party candidate in, but I mean, no one thought Bernie would make it that far and he did,” Johnson said. “No one thought he would and he won so many states in the primaries [as a Democrat]. Everyone was so shocked that whole states were coming together and picking him over other candidates. I think that is a huge step within itself that he made it so far.”

Voting for one of the two main parties may be “one of the traditional things,” according to Johnson, but there might be another reason why voters lean towards this.

“We definitely seem to be in a two party system. When they cast to see how many signatures are needed on the ballot between the third and main parties, it might be significantly less [for the two main] than a third party,” Geoghegan said. “So if they’re making it more difficult for the third party to even get on the ballot, then how are they able to perform and do [well]?”

Voters have a key decision to make by Election Day; whether they should cast their vote for the two main parties, or they are leaning towards the other two candidates, which has the potential to change the fate of the leader of our country for the next four years.