For ten years, Gallup Polls has been asking respondents if the nation needs a new major political party. On October 11, Gallup released these results: Yes 60%, No 26%, undecided 14%.
By contrast, when the poll was last taken, a year ago, the results were: Yes 46%, No 45%, undecided 9%. See here for more details. Not suprisingly, independent voters are most likely to express support for a new major party. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.
More or less STATISM ???– leftwing or rightwing control freak versions.
Yahoo’s actually had several articles on the increased interest in third parties. It might, just might, be possible that the Democrats and Republicans shot themselves in the foot with the combined effect of their policies over the last couple of decades. And now with this shutdown, people finally seem to be waking up.
Until we enact Instant Runoff Voting or regular runoff elections or get proportional elections or cumulative voting or one of the other methods better than First Past the Post we will never have any successful third parties. In the UK, the Liberal Democrats got 23% of the vote and only ended up with 9% of the seats. Can you imagine a third party in the U.S. coming anywhere close to 23%? Georgia is the only state that has a better system for some of it’s elections. It requires runoffs for statewide races only. Running a third party anywhere but there and cities where there is IRV unfortunately will only in extremely rare instances succeed.
Gallup uses a leading question:
“In your view, do the Republican and Democratic parties do an adequate job of representing the American people, or do they do such a poor job that a third major party is needed?”