What happens to the political situation on the USA if Teddy Roosevelt win as 3rd party?

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Sorry for the overly long title, I don't know how to put such a thing with less words without losing the context of the thread.

Never in american history a third party won as far as I know. Some people tried to arguee once in a thread that Lincoln victory was a third party victory since it was the first victory of the republicans, however it was replied that the whigs had been phased out and the republicans and democrats already had become the hegemons at that points so it does not counts as a third party win. The closest I can think of a 3rd party winning was Ted Roosevelt Running for the Progressive party in 1912, but he lost due the vote being splitted with the republicans.

based on that I ask you: Something happens, maybe a scandal involving Wilson or Taft that gives a boost for the Bull Moose party and suddently them finds themselves as the ruling party on the presidency, the USA now got three main parties, the progressives, the democrats and the republicans. What are the political ramifications? Could this system continues or the republicans would be steadily absorbed into the Bull Moose party?
 
You either get progressives ending up remerging with one of the two existing parties by 1930 or one of the existing parties dies, to be replaed by them.
 
There would not be three main parties.

Even if the Progressive ticket did somehow win the presidency - in my view ASB - in the Congressional elections most Republicans would still vote Republican and most Democrats Democratic. So TR would have found himself a POTUS without a Party - rather like John Tyler or Andrew Johnson. To govern effectively he would either have to rejoin the Republicans (which would mean abandoning most of the Progressive platform) or try to join the Democrats if they would have him, which is most unlikely.

Party realignments start in Congress, not at Presidential level. The Jacksonians controlled Congress even before Jackson won the White House, and the Republicans had the HoR before Lincoln did so. A presidential candidacy does not a realignment make.
 
Bye Bye Democrats or Republicans hello Progressives. Ie one of the big two takes over due to the nature of the American Political system.

Though if the three way political system could be kept that would make things far more interesting.
 
There would not be three main parties.

Even if the Progressive ticket did somehow win the presidency - in my view ASB - in the Congressional elections most Republicans would still vote Republican and most Democrats Democratic. So TR would have found himself a POTUS without a Party - rather like John Tyler or Andrew Johnson. To govern effectively he would either have to rejoin the Republicans (which would mean abandoning most of the Progressive platform) or try to join the Democrats if they would have him, which is most unlikely.

Party realignments start in Congress, not at Presidential level. The Jacksonians controlled Congress even before Jackson won the White House, and the Republicans had the HoR before Lincoln did so. A presidential candidacy does not a realignment make.

Bye Bye Democrats or Republicans hello Progressives. Ie one of the big two takes over due to the nature of the American Political system.

Though if the three way political system could be kept that would make things far more interesting.

Your comments have opposite arguments, can we get a consensus between the two?
 
Your comments have opposite arguments, can we get a consensus between the two?

That would be kind of difficult. I can only ask you to look at the OTL Congressional results.

TR, as is well-known, pulled in a respectable vote for POTUS, pushing Taft into third place; but he doesn't seem to have had any coattails. According to Wiki [1] the Progressive Party elected just 9 representatives - the same number they had won in 1910. Even in the six states TR carried, the party elected no Congressmen, though some Republicans from those States were no doubt TR supporters. The Republicans gained one seat each in MN and SD, which may have been gains for TR men, but essentially his impact on congress was negligible

In sum, the "Progressive Party" wasn't really a party at all, just a splinter of the Republican Party. TR's candidacy made the splinter look bigger than it was, but couldn't turn it into a party in is own right.



[1] US House of Representatives Elections 1912
 
As I posted here a while back:

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It is really hard to see how TR could win the presidency as a third party candidate. (I could certainly see him winning if he got the GOP nomination.) He just did not get enough support from Democrats. Remember, Bryan's showing in 1908 was considered very poor, yet he only lost to Taft by 51.6-43.0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1908 This means that all a Democrat had to do was hold on to *most* of the core Democratic vote to win, with the normal GOP vote divided between Taft and TR. (For that matter, the Democrats had won control of the House against a *united* Republican Party in 1910!) In fact, I think TR's OTL showing, though far behind Wilson in both popular and electoral votes, was better than it would have been had he not been shot:

"By October, the Bull Moose party showed signs of following the traditional route of American third parties, of proving less potent in November than in August. Three weeks before the election, however, the party received a figurative and almost literal shot in the arm, when a would-be assassin wounded its candidate during a Milwaukee speech. Roosevelt, with his unfailing sense of the dramatic, finished the speech before going off for a two-week stay in the hospital. In an election already decided, his gallantry doubtless reaped a large sympathy vote. 'This shooting will help TR directly by stopping his talking,' assessed Brandeis. 'There seemed to be very strong evidence of an ebbing tide before.' In a probably exaggerated estimate, one Democrat suggesting that the assailant, 'instead of murdering the intrepid Teddy...shot about a million votes into him.'" David Sarasohn, *The Party of Reform: Democrats in the Progressive Era*, p. 148....

The only thing I can think of that could elect TR would be some terrible last-minute scandal uncovered regarding Wilson or whoever the Democrats nominated. But if TR won because of that, his victory would probably be considered a fluke, and Democrats and Republicans in Congress would see little need to change their party affiliations. (Presumably there would be more than the 13 congressmen elected as Progressives in OTL, but probably not very many more. Observers at the time noted that the Progressive vote had "an 'inverted pyramid aspect.' It is largest at the top and 'tapers down very fast.'" https://books.google.com/books?id=FJ5FAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA997 This is not *totally* fair--two Progressive candidates for governor, Albert J. Beveridge in Indiana and Oscar Straus in New York, won more votes than TR in their states--but in general the Progressives did lag behind TR in down-ballot races.)

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I might have added that it is interesting to compare that with the early Republican party: they had already elected a Speaker of the House *before* their first presidential nomination in 1856.
 
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As has been pointed out, Roosevelt’s problem would be that he does not have much appeal to Democrats, but what if Debs does meaningfully better as well? At this time, the Socialist base primarily consisted of immigrants and the former Populist voters in Western states such as Nevada and Oklahoma - both the sort of people who would be otherwise predisposed to vote Democratic. So, figure out a way for a candidate who alienates both of those constituencies to win the chaotic convention (perhaps some Bourbon Democrat), causing many to defect to the Socialists. Couple this with a way to depress Taft’s numbers and send more Republicans to the Bull Moose camp, and things could get interesting...
 
Two-term TR realistically, as in not in Stirling's ATL means at least some more progressive reforms/an upsurge in progressive-socialist-populist type politics from all ends in the US, at least something to _start_ the road to national healthcare. No prohibition since TR's muscular nationalism on one hand, plus likely entering the war a year early* to burn out the ah upsurge in american self-righteousness defuse the urges that got prohibition implemented.

In the end, probably reversion to same two parties as OTL, even if both have more radical wings than OTL. More radicalism in the air, especially since there were a few talking about it OTL might mean a different response to the depression. Who knows, maybe we get UHC and UBI plus inspiring speeches to get the US out instead of NRA type corporatism, social security and ofc the same speeches.

* Lots of lions led to their deaths by donkeys, with no change to postwar geopolitics.
 
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