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The omens are there. In the 2000 presidential election, third parties drew enough votes in 11 states to prevent either Bush or his Democratic rival, Al Gore, from winning a majority of votes. But the success of third parties in the 2002 gubernatorial and Senate races is the real wake-up call. In 13 states, the number of voters who supported third-party candidates in statewide races last year was larger than the winning margin in the 2000 presidential election. Moreover, when third parties have done well in midterm elections, they do well in the next presidential election. In eight statewide races in 1990, third-party gubernatorial candidates together grabbed more votes than the winners' margins of victory. Ross Perot subsequently garnered a stunning 19 points as an independent presidential candidate in 1992 and a still impressive eight points in 1996.

Despite the fact that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader won just three points nationally in 2000, he still wielded quite a bit of influence in several states (including Florida, where he received 97,000 votes). The 2002 midterm elections also suggest that third parties could sway the presidential outcomes of even more states in 2004: third parties recorded a combined 5 % or more in 16 states last year, an even bigger showing than before Perot's success.

While Nader hurts the Democratic nominee, voters open to conservative third-party candidates who promote small government and criticize ballooning government budget deficits pose a significant but underappreciated threat to President Bush's reelection effort. These small-government conservatives disenchanted with the major parties made a real mark in the 2002 elections, when 2 % or more of voters in 15 gubernatorial and U.S. Senate elections cast their ballots for the Libertarian Party. And candidates running as independents cleared the 2 percent mark in seven other states. Numbers like these will be a decisive factor in a close presidential contest.

Here's the decisive question not being asked about the Bush campaign: Will voters for independent or Libertarian candidates in the 2002 elections coalesce behind one candidate in the 2004 presidential race? Finding a symbolic spending bill for the president to veto next spring or summer may not be enough to distract supporters of these third parties from the huge budget deficit run up on the Republican watch. The receptiveness to independent and Libertarian candidates is rooted in a deep frustration among many Americans that Republican leaders have abandoned Ronald Reagan's commitment to small government and bogged the country down in costly operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The support of voters for third-party candidates from across the political spectrum raises three challenges for pollsters, journalists, and other critical players in the presidential election:

First, pollsters who fail to offer voters the opportunity to indicate support for conservative third-party candidates run the risk of missing the dynamics of the race and providing an inaccurate picture of the evolving campaign.

Second, the press should expand its coverage to encompass the campaigns of potentially influential third-party candidates besides Nader. Access to state ballots is a telling issue that the press has yet to investigate seriously. Nader was able to get on only 43 state ballots in 2000 and is struggling this year to qualify on all state ballots. By contrast, the Libertarian Party successfully placed its 2000 presidential candidate on the ballots of every state and is likely to have its candidate on many more state ballots than Nader will be on this year.

Third, conventional assumptions about the electorate as polarized Republican and Democratic camps misses the trend of the last three presidential elections: third-party candidates are tipping the outcome of presidential elections.

Lawrence R. Jacobs is the McKnight Land Grant Professor and director of the 2004 Elections Project for the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. He can be reached at ljacobs@polisci.umn.edu and 612-625-3384.

Recent Publications on Third Parties and Battleground States

Bibby, John, L. Sandy Maisel. 2003. Two Parties-Or More?: The American Party System (Dilemmas in American Politics). Wesport, CT: Westview Press.

Herrnson, Paul, John C. Green, eds. 2003. Responsible Partnership? The Evolution of American Political Parties in the Post-War Era. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press.

Jacobs, Lawrence, Joanne Miller, Samantha Luks. 2003. "Who Wins? Campaigns and the Third Party Vote," Presidential Studies Quarterly 33:1 (March).

Koch, J.W. 2003. "Political Cynicism and Third Party Support in American Presidential Elections." American Politics Research 31:1 (January): 48-65.

Aldrich, John, Paul Abramson, and David Rohde. 2002. Continuity and Change in the 2000 Elections Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Maisel, L. Sandy. 2002. The Parties Respond: Changes in American Parties and Campaigns. 4th edition. Westport, CT: Westview Press.

Herrnson, Paul, John C. Green, eds. 2002. Multiparty Politics in America: Prospects and Performance. Landover, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Aldrich, John, Paul Abramson, Paul Paolino, and David Rohde. 2000. "Challenges to the American Two-Party System: Evidence from the 1968, 1980, 1992 and 1996 Presidential Elections," Political Research Quarterly 53:3 (September).