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Citation: Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldrich, Phil Paolino, and David
W. Rohde, "Third-Party and Independent Candidates in American Politics:
Wallace, Anderson, and Perot," Political Science Quarterly 110, 3
(Fall 1995 [psabra.html]). Acknoweledgments
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Third-Party and Independent Candidates in American Politics: Wallace,
Anderson, and Perot
PAUL R. ABRAMSON is professor of political science at Michigan State
University.
JOHN H. ALDRICH is professor of political science and chairman
of the department at Duke University.
PHIL PAOLINO is assistant professor
of government at the University of Texas at Austin.
DAVID W. ROHDE is the
University Distinguished Professor in the department of political science at
Michigan State University.
Between 1852 and 1992 the United States held thirty-six presidential
elections. The Democrats won fifteen, the Republicans won the other twenty-one.
This duopoly has been threatened from time to time, and Perot's 1992 challenge
was remarkably successful in winning popular votes. But no third-party or
independent candidate has come close to winning the presidency, largely because
the electoral rules in the United States create barriers that third parties and
independent candidates have been unable to surmount. [1]
We review U.S. elections since 1832, for these barriers to new political
parties were in place even then. The Republicans displaced the Whigs between
1854 and 1860, despite these structural barriers, by changing the issue agenda
over slavery. [2]
Fortunately for the United States, but unfortunately for third parties, since
the Civil War no issue as divisive as slavery has restructured American
politics. [3]
We focus on three recent efforts to challenge the two major parties -- George
C. Wallace's American Independent Party candidacy in 1968, John B. Anderson's
independent candidacy in 1980, and H. Ross Perot's independent candidacy in
1992. Several earlier third-party candidacies are as interesting, but for these
recent contests we have high quality survey research data that allow us to test
propositions about individual-level behavior. Lastly, we discuss presidential
elections in the French Fifth Republic, showing how different electoral rules,
along with a different political culture, lead to substantially different
outcomes.
THE ELECTORAL RULES IN THE UNITED STATES
The basic rules for electing the president are spelled out in Article II,
Section 1 of the Constitution, as modified by the Twelfth Amendment. The most
crucial feature of these rules is that the winning candidate must have a
majority of the electoral votes. Under the original provisions for electing the
president, each elector cast two votes, both of which were for president, and
one of these votes had to be for a candidate from outside the elector's state.
If no candidate won a majority of the electoral votes, the U.S. House of
Representatives -- voting by state delegations -- chose among the five
candidates with the largest number of electoral votes. If two candidates both
had a majority, and if they both had the same number, the House chose between
these two majority-winners.
The Twelfth Amendment, ratified shortly before the 1804 election, prevents
the outcome that occurred in 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr both won
a majority of the electoral vote and both won the same number of votes. This tie
forced the Federalist-controlled House to choose between Jefferson and Burr,
both Democratic-Republicans. Under the Twelfth Amendment, each elector casts a
separate vote for president and for vice-president (one of whom must be from
outside the elector's state). If no candidate receives a majority of the
electoral vote, the House now chooses among the top three candidates -- once
again voting by state delegations. However, ties among two majority-winners
could have been prevented in 1800 or after without constitutional change, for
parties could have instructed one or more presidential electors to cast a
strategic vote to assure that the party's presidential candidate had more votes
than the party's vice presidential candidate. In fact, the
Democratic-Republicans in 1800 were aware of the dangers of a tie, but believed
that their party would win in Rhode Island and that one of the state's four
electors would withhold his vote from Burr. [4] The winning party has
had electoral votes to spare in every presidential election except 1876, when
Rutherfold B. Hayes won by a single electoral vote, and as the Republicans held
the Senate (which could have chosen the vice president between the top two
candidates, with each senator casting an individual vote) they might have still
won the vice presidency.
Reducing the number of eligible candidates from five to three may have
affected the outcome of the 1824 election, the only other election decided by
the House. Although there was only one political party, the nominee of the
Democratic-Republican Congressional Caucus, William Crawford, was challenged,
leading to a four-way contest among Crawford, Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams,
and Henry Clay. Jackson won ninety-nine electoral votes, Adams gained
eighty-four, Crawford received forty-one, and Clay won thirty-seven. Clay was
thus ineligible for election. As Speaker of the House, he had considerable
influence, but could not use it to win his own election. Instead, Clay's support
proved crucial in securing Adams's election, and his efforts were apparently
rewarded when Adams selected him to be secretary of state.
For the next three years, Jackson campaigned for the presidency claiming that
a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay had denied him election. These
charges helped undermine the Adams presidency. Although presidential election by
the House is a legitimate way to gain office, few candidates begin a campaign
with election by the House as their goal.
The preferred strategy for gaining the White House is to win a majority of
the electoral votes and to be elected without incurring any additional
obligations. But some parties and candidates have followed alternative
strategies. In 1836, the Whigs ran three presidential candidates against Martin
Van Buren, each candidate appealing to a different region. It is not clear what
their next step would have been had this strategy led to denying Van Buren a
majority of the electoral vote. The strategy of running different presidential
candidates in different regions of the country was never tried again.
Wallace was on the ballot in every state in 1968, but he had no realistic
chance of winning the 270 electoral votes needed to be elected. Rather, his
declared goal was to win enough electoral votes to deny either Richard M. Nixon
or Hubert H. Humphrey a majority. All of Wallace's electors were technically
unpledged. In principle, Wallace might have bargained with Nixon for his
electors, for Nixon wanted to avoid having the House of Representatives
determine the outcome. It is difficult to imagine just what sort of bargain
Nixon could have made with Wallace that would not have undermined his
presidency. As Nixon won a clear majority of the electoral vote, Wallace had no
bargaining power.
Clearly, the House procedure is not seen as a runoff among the three top
candidates. From 1828 through 1992 a single presidential candidate has gained a
majority of the electoral vote. But even if a third-party or independent
candidate did become eligible for election by the House, a legislative body
dominated by Democrats and Republicans would be unlikely to turn to an
independent. On 16 July 1992, Perot announced that he would not run for
president, because he feared that his candidacy would throw the election to the
House and that this would be disruptive. Ed Rollins, who had resigned from the
Perot campaign days before, claimed that there was a strategy to deal with the
eventuality of a House election, but he provided no hint about what that
strategy was. The majority-win election rule, then, appears to have promoted
stability in presidential elections by encouraging the formation of two major
parties to prevent the potentially harmful consequences arising from the
election of a president unable to claim a mandate from the majority of the
electorate.
It is not just the need for an electoral vote majority that thwarts
third-party candidates. The way that states choose their electors also
undermines their chances. The Constitution allows each state to select its
electors in a manner determined by the state's legislature. Since the Civil War,
every state has chosen its electors by popular vote. Every state except Maine
and Nebraska chooses its electors by voting for a statewide slate. Maine and
Nebraska choose two of their electors by a statewide vote, and then select one
elector from each of the state's congressional districts. All of these elections
are based upon plurality-vote-win rules. Even states that require runoffs for
other offices require no runoffs for choosing presidential electors. In
principle, states could allocate their electors by proportional representation,
although no state has ever done so. The plurality-vote system chosen by most
states creates an additional obstacle to third-party and independent
candidacies.
DUVERGER'S LAW AND THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES
The U.S. plurality-vote system can be seen as a confirmation of Duverger's
law. According to Maurice Duverger, "le scrutin majoritaire a un seul tour tend
au dualisme des partis." [5] Barbara North and
Robert North translated this as: "the simple-majority single-ballot system
favours the two party system." [6] Clearly, by
"majoritaire" Duverger meant what we would call a plurality, or what North
and North call a "simple majority." By "un seul tour" Duverger meant a system
without runoff elections, which for all intents and purposes is an outcome of
the plurality-vote decision rule. Duverger explicitly saw the U.S. system for
electing presidents as confirming his law. As he writes, "The American procedure
corresponds to the usual machinery of the simple-majority [plurality]
single-ballot system. The absence of a second ballot and of further polls,
particularly in the presidential election, constitutes in fact one of the
historical reasons for the emergence and the maintenance of the two-party
system." [7]
According to Duverger, his law applies for two reasons. First, the
plurality-vote-win system has a "mechanical" effect. Third parties or
independent candidates may win many votes nationwide, but gain a plurality of
the vote in very few electoral units. Second, the plurality-vote-win system has
a "psychological" effect. Some voters who prefer a candidate or party that they
think cannot win will cast a vote for their first choice among the major-party
candidates. This behavior is often called "sophisticated" or "strategic" voting,
and is widely known as "tactical" voting in Britain, another democracy with a
plurality-vote-win system. William H. Riker defines strategic voting as "voting
contrary to one's immediate tastes in order to obtain an advantage in the long
run." [8]
The mechanical effect of the U.S. electoral system is easy to demonstrate.
Between 1832 and 1992 a total of thirteen third-party or independent
presidential candidates received either 5 percent of the popular vote or 5
percent of the electoral vote. [9] Ten of these thirteen
candidates received a larger share of the popular vote than they received of the
electoral vote. Perot won 18.9 percent of the popular vote without gaining a
single electoral vote, because his support was distributed relatively evenly
across the country. [10] He finished third in
forty-eight states as well as the District of Columbia. He finished second in
two states, but in neither did he come close to a plurality, losing by 8 points
to Bill Clinton in Maine and by 16 points to George Bush in Utah. Perot came
closest to winning a vote in Maine's second congressional district, but even
there he trailed Clinton by 5 points. Anderson received a far smaller share of
the popular vote (6.6 percent), finishing third in forty-nine states and the
District of Columbia and fourth behind Ed Clark (the Libertarian candidate) in
Alaska. Wallace did have a regional base, but he too was underrepresented in the
electoral college. He gained 13.5 percent of the popular vote, but only 8.5
percent of the electoral vote (including one faithless elector from North
Carolina).
Two third-party candidates were overrepresented in the electoral college. In
1860, John C. Breckinridge, the Southern Democrat, won 18.1 percent of the
popular vote, but gained 23.8 percent of the electoral vote (including eight
electoral votes from South Carolina, where the electors were chosen by the state
legislature). Sixty-seven percent of his popular vote came from the slave
states, which had somewhat lower turnout among their politically eligible
population than states outside the South. Moreover, under the three-fifths rule,
the slave population contributed to a state's representation in the U. S. House
of Representatives, and, therefore, to representation in the electoral college.
In the same election, John Bell, the candidate of the Constitutional Union
Party, the last remnant of the Whigs, was neither under nor overrepresented,
receiving 12.6 percent of the popular vote and 12.9 percent of the electoral
vote.
In 1948, J. Strom Thurmond, the States' Rights Democrat, won only 2.4 percent
of the popular vote, but he won 7.3 percent of the electoral votes. Thurmond won
55 percent of his popular vote in the four states that he carried (Alabama,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina), all of which had low turnout,
partly because the large African-American population was disfranchised. He
received no popular votes at all in thirty-one of the forty-eight states.
The psychological effects of the plurality-vote system are more difficult to
document. The argument that voters should avoid wasting their votes on a
candidate who has little chance of winning is well known to politicians and has
been used frequently by them. For example, in the 1932 presidential elections in
the Weimar Republic, the three major candidates were Paul von Hindenberg, Adolf
Hitler, and the Communist candidate, Ernst Thaelmann. Campaign posters for
Hindenberg did not emphasize his merits. Instead, Hindenberg posters in
working-class neighborhoods warned that "a vote for Thaelmann is a vote for
Hitler," whereas posters aimed at conservative voters warned that "a vote for
Hitler is a vote for Thaelmann." [11] In that same year,
supporters of Franklin D. Roosevelt urged Americans not to waste their vote on
Norman Thomas, the Socialist candidate. Thirty-six years later, Thurmond
purportedly helped hold South Carolina for Nixon by arguing that "a vote for
Wallace is a vote for Humphrey." [12] And in 1992, Perot
countered the wasted vote argument with the slogan, "Don't waste your vote on
politics as usual."
That politicians make (or refute) the wasted vote argument does not mean that
voters act upon it. As the chances that an individual voter will break or create
a tie in a presidential election are remote, voters may decide to vote for their
first choice, consistent with the logic of John A. Ferejohn and Morris P.
Fiorina's minimax-regret model. [13] Indeed, their model
predicts that rational voters never engage in strategic voting.
To demonstrate the presence or absence of sophisticated voting one needs
survey data, so we cannot determine whether Hindenberg benefited from his
campaign posters. [14]
And while American third-party and independent presidential candidates from
William Wirt in 1832 through H. Ross Perot in 1992 may have been hurt by the
wasted vote argument, we are restricted to examining the psychological effects
postulated by Duverger for voters in the 1968, 1980, and 1992 elections.
Before attempting to test for these effects, we want to underscore that even
if Wallace, Anderson, and Perot all lost some votes as the result of strategic
voting, it seems highly unlikely that they lost enough votes to cost them the
election. In fact, it seems likely that all three would have finished second in
head-to-head contests against either of the major party candidates they faced.
Moreover, it seems likely that Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton
were all Condorcet winners. The Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) argued that if
there is an outcome that would be preferred by a majority over any other
alternative, that outcome should be selected. A candidate who would defeat any
of his or her opponents in a head-to-head contest meets this criterion. If there
is a three-person contest in which candidate A would defeat candidate B in a
head-to-head contest and would also defeat candidate C in a head-to-head
contest, candidate A meets the Condorcet criterion. If candidate A wins the
actual election, he or she is the Condorcet winner. But since in most elections
voters can state a single preference for each office, a candidate can meet the
Condorcet criterion but lose the actual election. And there may be no outcome
that meets the Condorcet criterion. For example, candidate A might defeat
candidate B in a head-to-head contest, candidate B might defeat candidate C, and
candidate C might defeat candidate A. [15]
To support the conclusion that Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton were Condorcet
winners, we rely upon the "feeling" thermometers in which respondents are asked
to evaluate candidates. Respondents who have "Very warm or favorable" feelings
toward candidates can score them at 100, whereas those who have "Very cold or
unfavorable" feelings can score them at 0. A score of 50 indicates "No feeling
at all." These "thermometer" measures can be used to create a mock election,
since voters are very likely to vote for the candidate whom they score highest
on this measure. The thermometer measure was used to evaluate the candidates and
other political leaders in the 1968 National Election Studies (NES) postelection
survey. The 1980 and 1992 NES measured feelings toward the candidates in both
the pre- and postelection surveys.
We begin our analysis by analyzing the head-to-head comparisons among all
three candidates in all three elections, and these comparisons are presented in
Table 1. As we do not
know what turnout would have been if voters could make a series of head-to-head
comparisons, we begin by examining rankings
among all respondents. In Part B, we compare rankings among respondents who
reported voting for president in the postelection interview. The 1980 NES survey
included a vote validation study that checked registration and voting records to
determine whether or not respondents actually voted, and in Part C we compare
rankings among validated voters.
As Wallace was far more conservative than either Nixon or Humphrey (and thus
unattractive to moderates, let alone liberals), it seems highly unlikely that he
met the Condorcet criterion. He did not. As the table shows, Wallace would have
been badly defeated in a head-to-head contest against either Nixon or Humphrey.
When we restrict the analysis to self-reported voters (Part B), Wallace loses by
a slightly larger margin. In addition, nearly half the total sample rank Nixon
ahead of Humphrey (Part A). Among respondents who report voting, a slight
majority rank Nixon ahead of Humphrey (Part B). Nixon, therefore, emerges as the
likely Condorcet winner.
A centrist candidate like Anderson is more likely to meet the Condorcet
criterion yet lose, because voters discount his chances. But the evidence
suggests that Anderson did not meet the Condorcet criterion. Head-to-head
thermometer comparisons suggest that he would have finished a distant second to
either Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter. Ties are reduced when we restrict the
analysis to self-reported voters, but the overall ratio of major party
supporters to Anderson supporters is not affected (Part B). When we restrict the
analysis to validated voters (Part C), the hypothetical race between Carter and
Anderson tightens considerably. However, regardless of whether we examine all
respondents, self-reported voters, or validated voters, Reagan decisively
defeats Anderson in the postelection survey. And Reagan clearly leads Anderson
in the pre-election interview.
Table 1 also reminds
us of the changing dynamics of the 1980 contest. In the 1980 preelection survey,
Carter appears to be the likely Condorcet winner, at least among the entire
sample. But when the analysis is restricted to reported voters (Part B), Carter
edges out Reagan by only a single percentage point, and when it is restricted to
validated voters (Part C) Reagan ekes out a one point margin over Carter. There
thus appears to have been no clear Condorcet winner before the election. In the
postelection survey, Reagan emerges as the likely Condorcet winner. Almost half
the total sample rank Reagan ahead of Carter (Part A), and among both
self-reported voters (Part B) and validated voters (Part C), a majority do.
The Perot candidacy is more interesting, because Perot won a far larger
percentage of the popular vote than Wallace or Anderson, and also because some
critics have argued that he would have won if pre-election polls had not
predicted his defeat. Gordon S. Black and Benjamin D. Black reach this
conclusion based upon an analysis of the exit polls conducted for the four
television networks by Voter Research and Surveys. [16] At the end of the
exit poll ballot, respondents were asked to check statements that applied to
them. One statement read, "Would you have voted for Perot if you thought he had
a chance to win?" (About 4,000 respondents were asked this question.) Black and
Black report that 36 percent of the respondents said they would have voted for
Perot, whereas another 4 percent who did not answer this question had voted for
him. As Larry Hugick points out, it is inappropriate to conclude that many of
these Clinton or Bush voters would actually have voted for Perot had his chances
been viewed as better. [17] It seems more
reasonable to infer that many voted for Clinton or for Bush with little
enthusiasm, and answered yes merely to voice their frustration. Moreover, as
Hugick points out, Gallup polls found that 5 percent of Perot's supporters said
they would not vote for him if they thought he could win.
If Gordon and Benjamin Black are correct, Perot should emerge as a winner in
a set of head-to-head comparisons using the feeling thermometers. Although
voters may be reluctant to "waste" their votes, there is no reason for them to
waste their opportunity to score Perot highly. Granted, responses to the feeling
thermometer may be affected by how the respondent has voted or (in the case of
the pre-election survey) by how he or she plans to vote. To the extent that the
respondents' assessments of the candidates' chances affect their ratings on this
measure, the measure does not provide an evaluation that is independent of the
vote itself. Despite this qualification, the head-to-head rankings in Table 1 strongly suggest
that Perot would have lost a two-candidate contest to either Clinton or Bush.
Clinton emerges as the likely Condorcet winner in both the pre-election and
postelection survey. Steven J. Brains and Samuel Merrill III, who use somewhat
different procedures based upon these same data, also conclude that Clinton was
the likely Condorcet winner. They also report that Clinton would have been
elected if approval voting had been employed. [18]
Although it seems very unlikely that Wallace, Anderson, or Perot lost because
of sophisticated voting, all three were probably hurt somewhat by the wasted
vote argument. Moreover, even if a relatively small percentage of voters who
preferred Wallace voted for Nixon, the net effect of their behavior could have
undermined his strategy of preventing either Nixon or Humphrey from winning an
electoral vote majority. If Wallace had carried the three states in which he
came in second to Nixon (North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee), Nixon
could have won only 270 electoral votes, and a faithless elector would have
deprived him of a majority. As we will show, there is clearly some evidence
consistent with the logic of sophisticated voting.
Direct tests of strategic voting require that, in addition to feeling
thermometer evaluations of the candidates, one must also measure the
respondent's assessment of each candidate's chances of winning the election.
Measures of these voter assessments proved valuable in demonstrating the
presence of sophisticated voting in the 1988 presidential nominating contest. [19] But similar measures
were not included in the 1992 NES, nor were they used in the 1968 or 1980
surveys. All the same, the candidate thermometer scores provide important
indirect evidence about problems facing third-party and independent
candidates.
Table 2 reports
voting choices in the 1968, 1980, and 1992 elections controlling by the
respondents' three-way ranking of the candidates on the postelection feeling
thermometers. In all three elections, those who ranked a major party nominee
highest overwhelmingly supported that candidate. Bush suffered a larger
percentage of defections of any of the major party candidates, but even he won
93 percent of the vote among respondents who ranked him highest. Wallace won the
votes of 84 percent of the voters who ranked him highest, but he was less
successful in holding his supporters than the major party candidates. [20]
Anderson, by contrast, won the votes of only 57 percent of the voters who
ranked him highest. We find similar results among Anderson supporters who were
found by the vote validation study to have actually voted. Among validated
voters who ranked Anderson first (N = 91), 56 percent voted for him, 18
percent voted for Reagan, and 26 percent voted for Carter. Among validated
voters who ranked Reagan first (N = 323), 97 percent voted for him, 2
percent voted for Carter, and 1 percent voted for Anderson. And among validated
voters who ranked Carter first (N = 183) 97 percent voted for him, 3
percent voted for Reagan, and none voted for Anderson. Among voters ranking
Perot highest, 79 percent voted for him, while 21 percent defected. This finding
supports Gordon and Benjamin Black's claim that Perot was hurt by strategic
voting. But it seems implausible that he was hurt enough to cost him the
election.
One alternative explanation for the findings in Table 2 is basically
methodological. Assuming that voters are reporting their behavior accurately, we
have a measure of their behavior on election day. We have a measure of their
feelings toward the candidates in a survey conducted about a month or more after
the election. Feelings toward the candidates can change after the election, and
the rankings of third-party candidates may be more changeable than those of the
major party candidates. We cannot test this possibility for 1968, but we can
compare pre and postelection evaluations in 1980 and 1992.
We have elsewhere presented the joint distribution of individual-level
rankings before and after each of these elections. [21] The results for 1980
reveal a substantial individual-level shift away from Carter and toward Reagan,
reflecting the aggregate-level shift toward Reagan documented by Table 1. Even so, among
respondents who ranked Carter first before the election, 71 percent ranked him
first after the election. Among those who ranked Reagan first, 88 percent did so
after he was elected. But among respondents who ranked Anderson first before the
election, only 53 percent ranked him first in the postelection survey.
Relatively few respondents switched to Carter. Among respondents who ranked
Carter first after his defeat, 84 percent were Carter supporters before the
election. By contrast, only 70 percent of those who ranked Reagan first after
his victory had ranked him first before the election. Two-thirds of the
respondents who ranked Anderson first after the election had ranked him first
before the election.
Our analyses also reveal that evaluations of Perot were less stable than
those of Bush and Clinton. Among respondents who ranked Bush first before the
election, 74 percent did so after his defeat, while among those who ranked
Clinton first, 84 percent did so after his election. But among those who ranked
Perot first before the election, only 55 percent ranked him first in the
postelection interview. Among respondents who ranked Bush first after his
defeat, 83 percent had ranked him first before the election, while among those
who had ranked Clinton first, 79 percent had done so before he was elected.
Among respondents who ranked Perot first after the election, only 56 percent had
ranked him first before the contest. (Perot was not a candidate for the entire
period during which the pre-election interviews were conducted. But overall
levels of consistent candidate support are only slightly higher among
respondents interviewed in October and November than among those interviewed in
September.)
Even though we can measure respondents' feelings about the candidates before
and after the election, we cannot use the NES surveys to measure their
evaluations on election day itself. All the same, respondents who ranked a
candidate first both before and after an election were more likely to have
ranked him first on election day itself than respondents who switched their
rankings. In Table 3 we
present the reported vote choice among respondents according to both their pre
and postelection rankings. Among candidates who change their rankings between
the pre- and postelection interviews, defection rates are substantially higher
than those who do not. As our results make clear, the postelection rankings
provide a better predictor of voting choices than the pre-election rankings.
Among voters who rank a candidate highest in both the pre- and postelection
interview, the vast majority voted for that candidate. Even so, the percentage
of consistent Anderson supporters who voted for him is less than the percentage
of consistent major party supporters who voted for their first choice. All 275
voters who ranked Reagan first both before and after the election reported
voting for him, while 97 percent of the respondents who ranked Carter first both
before and after the election voted for Carter. On the other hand, three out of
ten respondents who ranked Anderson first both before and after the election
voted for either Reagan or Carter. Moreover, similar results obtain if we
restrict these analyses to validated voters. Among validated voters who ranked
Anderson first both before and after the election (N = 60), 70 percent
voted for Anderson, 10 percent voted for Reagan, and 20 percent voted for
Carter. By contrast, all 220 validated voters who ranked Reagan first both
before and after the election reported voting for Reagan. Among the 143
validated voters who ranked Carter first in both the pre- and postelection
interview, 97 percent voted for Carter, 3 percent voted for Reagan, and none
voted for Anderson.
Perot was more successful in winning the votes of his consistent supporters
than Anderson was in holding his. Even so, he was less successful than the major
party candidate with consistent support. Among respondents who ranked Clinton
highest both before and after his election, 98 percent reported voting for him,
while 96 percent of the respondents who ranked Bush highest before and after his
defeat voted for his reelection. But even among voters who ranked Perot first
both before and after the election, one out of eight reports voting for one of
the major party candidates.
These results strongly suggest that at least some voters responded to the
wasted vote argument. Even so, the mechanical effects of the plurality-vote-win
system had more of an impact than its psychological effects. In both 1968 and
1992, the system's mechanical effects were strong enough to transform a
plurality-vote winner in the popular vote into a majority-vote winner in the
electoral college. And while Reagan won a popular vote majority of 50.7 percent
in 1980, the mechanical effect transformed that vote into a huge 90.9 percent
electoral vote majority. Moreover, as the apparent Condorcet winner won all
three elections, it would be difficult to argue that the electoral system led to
a pernicious result. Still, the psychological effect appears to have some
genuine impact. Riker argues that elites also act on the psychological effect
(as noted above in several ways, including explicit campaign appeals). [22] That Wallace held
nearly the same poll standing in September as Humphrey, but then lost support
rapidly while Humphrey's increased, for example, suggests that the institutional
base of a major party made elite manipulation more effective for the major
parties, and thus reinforced the status-quo, two-party system.
PRESIDENTIAL VOTING IN FRANCE
Although presidential systems are widely used in Latin America and although
many newly created democracies have presidential systems, Arend Lijphart
classifies only three Western democracies as presidential: the United States,
Finland, and France. [23] As Finland has had
only one popular vote election for president (held in 1994), it can provide
little evidence about the effects of electoral laws upon presidential voting.
However, the six popular vote elections of the French Fifth Republic provide
insights about the effects of direct popular vote election.
Differences between the French and the U.S. party systems cannot be explained
by institutional differences alone. As Philip E. Converse and George Dupeux
pointed out, differences between French and American political socialization
processes lead to weaker partisan loyalties in France than in the United States.
[24] The relative
importance of ideology and partisanship in French elections is a subject of
debate, [25] but
ideological factors are more important in French elections than in most U.S.
elections. And there are great differences between the American republic that
has been politically stable since 1865 and the French republic in which civilian
leaders abandoned power in the face of a threatened military coup as recently as
1958.
But institutional differences are also important in contributing to the
French multiparty system, as Converse and Dupeux recognized. [26] As Joseph A.
Schlesinger and Mildred Schlesinger demonstrate, the run-off system in
legislative elections has not only shaped electoral outcomes but the strategies
pursued by the political parties. [27]
Nine of the ten National Assembly elections of the Fifth Republic have
employed a run-off system, and French presidential elections employ a run-off
system as well. To be elected on the first ballot, a candidate needs a majority
of the votes cast, and if no candidate receives a majority a run-off is held
among the two top candidates. By contrast, to win in the first round of a
legislative election, one needs a majority of the votes cast in a single-member
district; any candidate with 12.5 percent of the registered voters is eligible
to compete in the run-off. There have been only seven presidential elections in
the Fifth Republic, and Charles de Gaulle's election in 1958 was by an electoral
college of elected officials. In 1962, the Fifth Republic adopted direct
presidential elections in a referendum approved by only 62 percent of the
voters, and by only 46 percent of those registered to vote. The first direct
election was in 1965, when de Gaulle sought a second seven-year term. Even de
Gaulle could not win a majority of the vote and was forced into a run-off. After
winning the runoff, de Gaulle became France's second directly elected president.
The first was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who was elected president of the Second
Republic in 1848.
French presidential elections have many candidates, partly because it is easy
to get on the ballot. As France is a unitary system, one qualifies for placement
on a national ballot, and does not need to qualify separately in fifty-one
electoral units. After the 1974 election, in which a record twelve candidates
qualified for the presidential ballot, the requirements for gaining ballot
access were tightened somewhat. A candidate must receive signatures from a total
of 500 elected officials, and those officials must come from at least thirty of
the ninety-six departments. As a further requirement, no more than 10 percent of
the signatures can come from any one department. But there are many elected
officials in France, [28] and these
requirements can be met by relatively obscure candidates. Ten presidential
candidates qualified for the ballot in 1981, and nine qualified in 1988 and
1995. Political parties have little control over access to the ballot, but
parties do officially support candidates.
The French electoral system may appear to be ideally designed for independent
candidates, but no one has ever been elected without party support. [29] De Gaulle claimed to
be above the parties, but a Gaullist party (the Union for the New Republic)
supported him. In 1969, Georges Pompidou was the leader of the Union of
Democrats for the Republic (the new name of the Gaullists), and in 1974 Valery
Giscard d'Estaing was president of the Independent Republicans. In 1981 Francois
Mitterrand was first secretary of the Socialist party. Jacques Chirac, elected
in his third presidential race in 1995, reorganized the Gaullists in 1976. He
was president of the Rally for the Republic (the current name of the Gaullists)
when he announced his candidacy in November 1994.
Partly because there are so many candidates, a run-off becomes very likely
and is widely anticipated by the electorate. In fact, several candidates have
qualified for the run-off with a low percentage of the popular vote. In 1981,
Mitterrand won only a fourth of the first ballot votes, but overtook Giscard
d'Estaing in the run-off. In both 1988 and 1995, Chirac qualified for the
run-off with only a fifth of the vote. Chirac was soundly defeated by Mitterrand
in the run-off in 1988, but he overtook Lionel Jospin, the Socialist candidate,
seven years later.
In addition, a relatively large number of third-or-worse place finishers
receive a substantial share of the vote. The contrast with the United States is
striking. In the forty-one U.S. presidential elections between 1832 and 1992,
only thirteen third-or-worse place finishers received 5 percent or more of the
popular vote. In the six French presidential elections between 1965 and 1995,
fourteen third-or-worse place finishers won 5 percent or more of the first round
vote.
Strategic voting may occur in first-round presidential elections. A voter may
recognize that his or her first choice has little chance of qualifying for the
run-off, but may have a less favored candidate who has a good chance of
qualifying. On the other hand, recognizing that a run-off will be held, voters
may choose to vote sincerely on the first ballot, which may account for the
large percentage of votes for candidates who have very little chance of
winning.
The French experience raises questions that proponents of direct presidential
elections in the United States should consider. How would the presidential
nomination process work? Would a run-off be required if no candidate gained an
absolute majority of the popular vote? Would a lower percentage be sufficient,
and, if so, what would that percentage be? Does direct election make a "wrong
winner" less likely than the current U.S. system? [30 ] We will not answer
these questions here, but one conclusion seems warranted. Directly electing the
president by popular vote would threaten the Republican and Democratic
presidential duopoly.
As of today, major electoral change seems unlikely, although some states may
adopt the district system employed by Maine and Nebraska. But the
plurality-vote-win system does not guarantee major-party dominance, as the
Progressive Conservative party in Canada learned in October 1993. Ultimately, no
electoral system can protect major political parties from the electorate. But
the U. S. system clearly offers considerable protection for the major parties.
The Wallace, Anderson, and Perot candidacies illustrate that both the mechanical
effects of the electoral system, as well as the psychological effects of the
system on individual voters, create serious problems for candidates who
challenge two-party dominance.
TABLES
[1] [2] [3]
TABLE 1
Comparative Thermometer Ratings of the Candidates in 1968, 1980, and 1992:
Head-to-Head comparisons in percentages.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Republican Republican Democrat
versus versus versus
Democrat Independent Independent
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Part A. All Respondents
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1968 Postelection Survey: Candidate Rated First*
Nixon 48 Nixon 78 Humphrey 72
Tie 13 Tie 7 Tie 7
Humphrey 39 Wallace 16 Wallace 20
Total 100 Total 101 Total 99
(N = 1,302) (N = 1,290) (N = 1,293)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1980 Pre-election Survey: Candidate Rated First
Reagan 41 Reagan 50 Carter 50
Tie 10 Tie 16 Tie 15
Carter 48 Anderson 34 Anderson 35
Total 99 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 1,521) (N = 1,378) (N = 1,384)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1980 Pre-election Survey: Candidate Rated First
Reagan 48 Reagan 59 Carter 49
Tie 13 Tie 16 Tie 16
Carter 39 Anderson 25 Anderson 35
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 1,370) (N = 1,273) (N = 1,275)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1992 Preelection Survey: Candidate Rated First
Bush 40 Bush 52 Clinton 56
Tie 12 Tie 12 Tie 14
Clinton 49 Perot 35 Perot 30
Total 101 Total 99 Total 100
(N = 2,414)** (N = 2,295)** (N = 2,293)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1992 Postelection Survey: Candidate Rated First
Bush 36 Bush 47 Clinton 57
Tie 11 Tie 14 Tie 15
Clinton 53 Perot 39 Perot 28
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 2,222) (N = 2,178)** (N = 2,175)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Part B. Respondents who Reported Voting for President
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1968 Postelection Survey: Candidate Rated First*
Nixon 51 Nixon 80 Humphrey 74
Tie 10 Tie 5 Tie 6
Humphrey 39 Wallace 15 Wallace 20
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 975) (N = 969) (N = 970)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1980 Pre-election Survey: Candidate Rated First
Reagan 45 Reagan 51 Carter 47
Tie 9 Tie 15 Tie 14
Carter 46 Anderson 34 Anderson 39
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 947) (N = 886) (N = 889)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1980 Postelection Survey: Candidate Rated First
Reagan 52 Reagan 61 Carter 46
Tie 11 Tie 14 Tie 15
Carter 37 Anderson 26 Anderson 39
Total 100 Total 101 Total 100
(N = 980) (N = 940) (N = 937)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1992 Pre-election Survey: Candidate Rated First
Bush 41 Bush 52 Clinton 57
Tie 9 Tie 12 Tie 13
Clinton 50 Perot 36 Perot 30
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 1,660)** (N = 1,615)** (N = 1,614)**
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1992 Postelection Survey: Candidate Rated First
Bush 37 Bush 47 Clinton 57
Tie 9 Tie 13 Tie 14
Clinton 54 Perot 40 Perot 29
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 1,665)** (N = 1,651)** (N 1,647)**
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Part C. Validated Voters (1980 Only) ***
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1980 Pre-election Survey: Candidate Rated First
Reagan 46 Reagan 52 Carter 46
Tie 8 Tie 15 Tie 14
Carter 45 Anderson 33 Anderson 40
Total 99 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 814) (N = 772) (N = 775)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1980 Postelection Survey: Candidate Rated First
Reagan 53 Reagan 61 Carter 44
Tie 11 Tie 14 Tie 16
Carter 36 Anderson 25 Anderson 40
Total 100 Total 100 Total 100
(N = 767) (N = 736) (N = 734)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The results are based upon our analyses of the
National Election Studies.
* Candidate thermometers were not used in the 1968 preelection
survey.
** The numbers for 1992 are weighted using the time-series
weight.
*** There was no vote validation study in 1968 or 1992. Our
procedures for classifying respondents as validated voters or
nonvoters follow those described in Paul R. Abramson and William
Claggett, "Race-Related Differences in Self-Reported and
Validated Turnout," Journal of Politics 46 (August 1984): 719-38,
except that we classified four validated voters who said they did
not vote for president as nonvoters.
TABLE 2
Candidate Thermometer Rankings of the Candidates and the Vote: 1968, 1980,
and 1992 (in percentages).
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Presidential Vote in 1968
-----------------------------------------------------------------
First Place in
Thermometer
Ratings*
Nixon Humphrey Wallace Total (Number)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Nixon 96 2 2 100 (418)
Humphrey 2 97 1 100 (353)
Wallace 15 1 84 100 (107)
Nixon-Humphrey tie 39 60 2 101 (67)
Nixon-Wallace tie [4] [0] [5] (9)
Wallace-Humphrey tie [0] [3] [0] (3)
Three-way tie [3] [4] [2] (9)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Presidential Vote in 1980
-----------------------------------------------------------------
First Place in
Thermometer Ratings*
Reagan Carter Anderson Total (Number)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Reagan 97 2 1 100 (409)
Carter 3 7 0 100 (253)
Anderson 18 25 57 100 (111)
Reagan-Carter tie 40 60 0 100 (41)
Reagan-Anderson tie 88 3 9 100 (34)
Carter-Anderson tie 7 67 26 100 (27)
Three-way tie 24 64 12 100 (25)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Presidential Vote in 1992
-----------------------------------------------------------------
First Place in
Thermometer
Ratings* Bush Clinton Perot Total (Number)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Bush 93 2 5 100 (481)**
Clinton 2 95 3 100 (674)**
Perot 9 12 79 100 (233)**
Bush-Clinton tie 50 42 8 100 (72)**
Bush-Perot tie 45 4 51 100 (51)**
Clinton-Perot tie 4 60 36 100 (80)**
Three-way tie 23 40 37 100 (27)**
Source: The results are based upon our analyses of the National
Election Studies.
* Based upon the postelection thermometers.
* * The numbers for 1992 are weighted using the time-series
weight.
TABLE 3
Candidate Thermometer Rankings of the Candidates in the Pre- and Postelection
Interviews and the Vote: 1980 and 1992 (in percentages).
First in | First in |Presidential Vote in 1980
Pre-Elect.| Post-elect.|
Ratings | Ratings |Reagan Carter Anderson Total (Number)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Reagan Reagan 100 0 0 100 (275)
Reagan Carter [1] [0] [0] [1]
Reagan Anderson [4] [0] [2] [6]
Carter Carter 3 97 0 100 (196)
Carter Reagan 90 10 0 100 (21)
Carter Anderson 20 70 10 100 (10)
Anderson Anderson 11 19 70 100 (73)
Anderson Reagan 89 4 7 100 (28)
Anderson Carter [0] [8] [0] [8]
First in | First in | Presidential Vote in 1992
Pre-El. | Post-El. |
Ratings | Ratings | Bush Clinton Perot Total (Number)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Bush Bush 96 1 3 100 (407)**
Bush Clinton 38 53 9 100 (24)**
Bush Perot 33 3 64 100 (29)**
Clinton Clinton *** 98 2 100 (524)**
Clinton Bush [3] [2] [0] [5]**
Clinton Perot 3 22 74 99 (31)**
Perot Perot 3 9 88 100 (126)**
Perot Bush 69 4 27 100 (22)**
Perot Clinton 3 86 10 99 (29)**
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Source: The results are based upon our analyses of the National
Election Studies.
* Cases in which respondents tied candidates for first place have
been excluded.
* * The numbers for 1992 are weighted using the time-series
weight.
* * * Less than one percent.
NOTES
1. This article emphasizes the reasons third parties fail. For an extensive
discussion of the reasons voters do support third-party candidacies, see Steven
J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, and Edward H. Lazarus, Third Parties in America:
Citizen Response to Major Party Failure (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1984).
2. See John H. Aldrich, Why Parties? The Origin and Transformation of
Political Parties in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995);
William H. Riker, Liberalism Against Populism: A ConfrontationBetween
the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice (San Francisco: W.
H. Freeman, 1982); and Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1986).
3. Race-related issues led to substantial shifts in party support since World
War II (see Edward G. Carmines and James A. Stimson, Issue Evolution: Race
and the Transformation of American Politics, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1989), but not to the success of a new political party. For a
recent critique of the Carmines and Stimson thesis, see Alan I. Abramowitz,
"Issue Evolution Reconsidered: Racial Attitudes and Partisanship in the U.S.
Electorate," American Journal of Political Science 38 (February
1994): 1-24.
4. See Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 1990).
5. Maurice Duverger, Les partis politiques, 3rd ed. (Paris: Armand
Colin, 1958), 247.
6. Maurice Duverger, Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in
the Modem State, trans. Barbara North and Robert North (New York: Wiley,
1963), 217.
7. Duverger, Political Parties, 218. For a discussion of the
historical developments leading to Duverger's law, see William H. Riker, "The
Two-party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political
Science," American Political Science Review 76 (December 1982): 753-66.
For a more recent formulation by Duverger himself, see Duverger, "Duverger's Law
Forty Years Later" in Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart eds., ElectoralLaws
and Their Political Consequences (New York: Agathon Press, 1986).
8. Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation, 78.
9. The complete list of candidates is presented in Paul R. Abramson et al.,
"The Problem of Third-Party and Independent Candidates in the American Political
System: Wallace, Anderson, and Perot in Comparative Perspective" (paper
presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,
New York, 1994), table 1.
10. See Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldrich, and David W. Rohde, Change and
Continuity in the 1992 Elections, rev. ed. (Washington, DC:
Congressional Quarterly Press, 1995), 76.
11. See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2nd.
enlarged ed. (Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1958), 264.
12. Nadine Cohodas, Strom Thurmond and the Politics of Southern Change
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993), 400.
13. John A. Ferejohn and Morris P. Fiorina, "The Paradox of Not Voting: A
Decision Theoretic Analysis," American Political Science Review 68 (June
1974): 525-36; "Closeness Counts Only in Horseshoes and Dancing," American
Political Science Review 69 (September 1975): 920-25; and "To P or Not to P?
Still Asking After All These Years?" (typescript, Harvard University, 1993).
14. For individual-level evidence suggesting that some voters behave
strategically in Britain, see Bruce E. Cain, "Strategic Voting in Britain,"
American Journal of Political Science 22 (August 1978): 639-55. For
evidence on Canada, see Jerome H. Black, "The Multicandidate Calculus of Voting:
Application to Canadian Federal Elections," American Journal of Political
Science 22 (August 1978): 609-38.
15. For a discussion of Condorcet's theory of social choice, see Duncan
Black, The Theory of Committees and Elections (Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1958).
16. Gordon S. Black and Benjamin D. Black, "'Perot Wins!': The Election That
Could Have Been," The Public Perspective 4 (January/February 1993):
15-16.
17. Larry Hugick, "A Response to Gordon and Benjamin Black: Perot's Own
Actions Determined His Fate," The Public Perspective 4
(January/February 1993): 17-18.
18. Steven J. Brams and Samuel Merrill III, "Would Ross Perot Have Won the
1992 Presidential Election Under Approval Voting?" PS 27 (March 1994):
39-44. The 1992 NES exaggerates Clinton's support. See Abramson, Aldrich, and
Rohde, Change and Continuity in the 1992 Elections. However, it seems
unlikely that these biases are so great as to call into question the conclusion
that Clinton was the likely Condorcet winner.
19. See Abramson et al., "'Sophisticated' Voting in the 1988 Presidential
Primaries," American Political Science Review 86 (March 1992): 55-69.
20. For evidence that Wallace supporters who voted for Nixon were acting
strategically, see Richard F. Bensel and M. Elizabeth Sanders, "The Effect of
Electoral Rules on Voting Behavior: The Electoral College and Shift Voting,"
Public Choice 34 (1979): 69-85.
21. See Abramson et al., "The Problem of Third-Party and Independent
Candidates," table 4.
22. Riker, "The Two-party System and Duverger's Law."
23. Arend Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus
Government in Twenty-One Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1984).
24. Philip E. Converse and Georges Dupeux, "Politicization of the Electorate
in France and the United States," Public Opinion Quarterly 26 (Spring
1962): 1-23; see also Converse and Roy Pierce, PoliticalRepresentation in
France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986).
25. Converse and Pierce, 'Comment on Fleury and Lewis-Beck: 'Anchoring the
French Voter: Ideology versus Party,"' Journal of Politics 55 (November
1993): 1110-17; Christopher J. Fleury and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, "Anchoring the
French Voter: Ideology versus Party," Journal of Politics 55 (November
1993): 1100-09; Fleury and Lewis-Beck, "Deja Vu All Over Again: A Comment
on the Comment of Converse and Pierce," Journal of Politics 55 (November
1993): 1118-26; and Ronald Inglehart and Hans D. Klingemann, "Party
Identification, Ideological Preference and the Left-Right Dimension among
Western Mass Publics" in Ian Budge, Ivor Crewe, and Dennis Farlie, eds.,
Parry Identification and Beyond: Representations of Voting and Party
Competition (London: Wiley, 1976).
26. Converse and Dupeux, "Politicization of the Electorate."
27. Joseph A. Schlesinger and Mildred Schlesinger, "The Reaffirmation of a
Multiparty System in France," American Political Science Review 84
(December 1990): 1077-1101; "French Parties and the Legislative Election of
1993," Party Politics 1 (July 1995): 367-78.
28. See Francoise Subileau and Marie-France Toinet, Les chemins de
l'absention: une comparaison Franco-Americaine (Paris: Editions la
Decouverte, 1993).
29. For the complete results for the five direct presidential elections held
between 1965 and 1988, see Abramson et al., "The Problem of Third-Party and
Independent Candidates," table 6.
30. See David W. Abbott and James P. Levine, Wrong Winner: The Coming
Debacle in the Electoral College (New York: Praeger, 1991).
* The National Election Studies surveys used in this article were provided by
the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The
Consortium is not responsible for our analyses or our interpretation of these
data. We are grateful to Joseph A. Schlesinger and Mildred Schlesinger for their
assistance and to Abraham Diskin for his suggestions.
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