Impact of Third Party Candidates in Presidential Elections - Essay Example

Third-party candidates are more likely to win elections easily at the local level which may cost a lot in other aspects of the elections according to Bibby and Schaffner (278). In avoiding this, the American government adopts a unique electoral system of winner-takes-all which allows the domination of two parties only.

The third-party candidate is said to add more weight on either of the two candidates in an attempt to improve their political agenda after elections.  Although these third-party candidates rarely emerge as winners, they may have an impact on the elections. For instance,, they are mostly accused with the issue of spoiler impact. This is because it is likely for them to expose issues that majority parties may ignore. If the issue is accepted by the voters, the major parties may adopt it into their party platform.

Another impact of third-party candidates is that they can be used to pass a protest vote as a type of referendum on a significant issue. This may have the effect of an important issue being voted against due to disagreements between the major parties. Third-party candidates also have positive impacts in that they help in increasing the turnout of voters during elections. The importance of this is that voters who might have come to vote for the third-party candidate may change and vote for another candidate. On the same note, a large voter turnout is important as it helps in ensuring that the interest of each voter is taken care of. The third-party candidate also has the effect of ensuring that the voters’ attention is drawn to party candidates whose names appear on the ballot. Thus it enables other candidates to win at the local or state offices. For instance, in the United States elections of 2004, there was twenty-five percent of the third-party electorates Schmidt, Shelley, Bardes,, and Ford (304).

Third-party candidates sometimes may end in an agreement on certain issues with voters in a certain election. The outcome is that an issue is brought to national prominence thus gaining a bigger portion of the popular vote. This is of significance to major parties is democratic and republican parties as it helps adopt the issue in the next election. For instance, after the 1968 elections, under President Nixon, his party adopted a southern strategy to win against the democrats who opposed the issue of the civil rights movement.