Those seeking to chart a new path to the White House range from members of Congress to a prominent academic and a scion of one of the county’s most prominent political families.
Their chances are extremely long.
George Washington was the only person to win the presidency without party affiliation. An incumbent president has not lost his party’s nomination since Democrats replaced Franklin Pierce in 1856. The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 marked the last time a member of a new party – in his case, the Republican Party – won the White House.
But while the United States is deeply divided and somewhat uneasy about the prospect of a new Biden-Trump campaign, third-party candidates insist voters are agitated enough to defy history.
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“This is now really fertile ground for independent politics” Jill Stein, said the Green Party candidate in 2012 and 2016 in an interview. “There is so much hunger for principled politics, politics of integrity and options outside of the two zombie candidates we are being forced to swallow and the two zombie political parties.”
Little-known candidates with no chance of winning run every year and sometimes garner enough votes to make a difference in close races, even if they don’t win. But the activity this fall has been remarkable.
Stein, a doctor and environmental activist, announced this month that she would make her third bid for president in 2024, reversing her earlier decision to stay away next year and support Cornel West, a progressive scholar and activist with a loyal following on the left. West announced last month that he was no longer running under the Green Party banner, but as an independent.
Stein said she felt dissatisfaction with the steady growth of the major parties since her first presidential campaign and that “it’s off the charts now.”
Americans think Biden, 81, is too old and they are divided on criminal charges against Trump, 77, who has been indicted four times and will stand trial next year.
Nearly 80% said Biden is too old be in force for another four years. About half of Americans approved from the Justice Department blaming Trump for his efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election to Biden.
Aware of their candidates’ mediocre approval ratings, Democrats and Republicans monitor third-party campaigns with suspicion.
Many Democrats blame Stein for Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Stein won by 1.5 million votes while Trump beat Clinton by the narrowest of margins in a few swing states. Democrats assume that a large number of voters supporting a progressive environmental activist would likely have chosen Clinton if forced to choose between the major parties.
Stein takes offense to the idea that votes could be “stolen” from the major parties.
Meanwhile, little known Minnesota The congressman is challenging Biden in the Democratic primary. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota said Democrats are sleepwalking toward disaster with their march toward re-nominating an unpopular president who is the oldest person to hold the office.
“I just say the quiet part out loud,” Phillips said in an interview with Caroline from the south. “Everyone keeps lining up, shutting up, sitting down and doing what you do to make sure you get the money for your next election.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.last month ended his Democratic primary challenge to Biden and is run instead as an independent. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, enjoys higher approval ratings among Republicans than Democrats, despite his deep family ties to the Democratic Party. Kennedy’s uncle was President John F. Kennedy and his father was Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy has developed close relationships with far-right figures and has ties to some conservatives attracted to his fringe views, including his expressed distrust of COVID-19 vaccines, which studies have shown are safe and effective against serious illness and death.
His anti-vaccine organization, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit against a number of news organizations, including the Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking steps to identify misinformation, including on COVID-19 and COVID-19. vaccines. Kennedy took leave of the group when he announced his candidacy for president, but he is listed as one of his lawyers in the lawsuit.
No Labels, a well-funded group laying the groundwork for an eventual bipartisan ticket, is working on voting access in all 50 states, with more than a dozen already approved. The plan has sparked growing concern among Democrats, who believe its support will come primarily from potential Biden voters, making it easier for Trump to return to the White House. If the group managed to win one or more states, no candidate would be able to obtain a majority of the Electoral College votes and the election would be decided by the House of Representatives.
No Labels hasn’t said much about how it will choose a candidate. The party planned to release a selection process in October, but the timetable was pushed back to November and it appears to continue to slip back.
Senator Joe Manchin, DW.Va., announced this month that he would not run for re-election next year but would travel the country to consider an independent presidential campaign. At the same time, a new group emerged calling for Manchin and Utah Senator Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential candidate, will run on the No Labels ticket.
The group is raising money for a poll to test the viability of a bipartisan ticket with the two incumbent senators, starting with Arizona and Michigan, according to Jennifer Franks, chair of the Draft Romney/Manchin committee. Romney considered running for president but abandoned the effort after concluding it would help Trump, according to a biography of Romney written by journalist McKay Coppins and published last month.
Manchin said he would seek to reinvigorate centrists who feel excluded from the political system and would consider running if no one showed up to represent their interests in the presidential campaign. He insists he “won’t be anyone’s spoiler.”
“I’m not going to run,” Manchin told reporters in West Virginia this month. “I’m going there with a mission to bring Americans together.”
Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina, and Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed to this report.
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