WI small political parties controlled States in the USA.

WI there were more political parties in the US let's say certain states lose confidence in the central government after the Great Depression and form statist parties but unlike the republicans and democrats who campaign in the national level these parties were more focused on state rather than federal office, e.g Texas controlled by a native Texan party focused only on the affairs of Texas.

So my question is how would this effect US politics if the big two don't have monopoly on power would they have to form coalition government if neither can out right control office.
 
e.g Texas controlled by a native Texan party focused only on the affairs of Texas.

Well, I would have to think that, even with Republicans and Democrats, state political parties are focussed pretty much exclusively on the affairs of their own states. I don't think a Democratic governor, for example, is saying to himself "Well, I gotta do what's right for the state, but as a member of a national party, I've got to think about the overall welfare of the US as well". And even less so Democratic statehouse members and mayors. (Same goes for Republicans, of course).

Now, if the Governor of Texas has national political ambitions for himself, he might be slightly less inclined to screw over other states in pursuit of Texas' welfare, since he doesn't want what the rest of the country will perceive as his exteme selfishness to haunt him on the national campaign trail. But that's gonna be true whether or not he's from an old-line party, or an ATL Texas-only party.

In Canada, the so-called Energy Wars of the 70s/80s were between the oil-producing province of Alberta(who wanted higher prices), the oil-importing province of Ontario(who wanted lower prices), with the federal government more-or-less siding with Ontario. Thing is, both Alberta and Ontario were governed by the provincial wings of the national Progressive Conservative Party. But I think both provinces pretty much pursued their own agendas with as much self-interest as they would have had they been governed by province-only parties.

SUMMARY: It probably wouldn't have all that much impact, since state parties, even with national affiliations, pursue the interests of their own state.
 
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One more thing...

In Canada, the so-called Energy Wars of the 70s/80s were between the oil-producing province of Alberta(who wanted higher prices), the oil-importing province of Ontario(who wanted lower prices), with the federal government more-or-less siding with Ontario. Thing is, both Alberta and Ontario were governed by the provincial wings of the national Progressive Conservative Party. But I think both provinces pretty much pursued their own agendas with as much self-interest as they would have had they been governed by province-only parties.

I'll add that when the Alberta premier Lougheed retired in 1985, there was some speculation about him possibly running for the leadership of the federal PCs(and thus, eventually, Prime Minister) but the general consensus was that he'd be persona non grata in Ontario, because of his hardline stance in favour of Alberta's interests. It didn't seem to matter a whit that he had been a member of the provinical PCs. All people cared about was that he had wanted Ontario to pay more for its oil.
 
The NPL of North Dakota, Farmer-Labour of Minnesota, and the Wisconsin Progressives are the best examples. They all tended to be dominate in their states from the 1910s to the 1940s and only cared about their state's interests, and actually sent a majority of Wisconsin and Minnesota's congressional delegations. They are the best examples.
 
Maybe a good way for this to happen is if one of the major parties becomes totally unacceptable in a big chunk of the country, and starts seeing its former voters picked up by various third parties.

Maybe if the Democrats got really taken over by their conservative Southern wing at some point, and we see the party's support among the left collapse in most of the country. I could see a bunch of little leftist parties forming all over the place, ranging from pretty centrist to pretty radical in different states. With that level of ideological diversity it could be tough to merge together into one big party, though perhaps eventually maybe they'd at least try to form a coalition in the Presidential race. Interesting to think about that besides that office, there's not really any need to have parties that spread across multiple states, so long as their reps are willing to cooperate in general against the Republicans once they're in Congress.
 
The NPL of North Dakota, Farmer-Labour of Minnesota, and the Wisconsin Progressives are the best examples. They all tended to be dominate in their states from the 1910s to the 1940s and only cared about their state's interests, and actually sent a majority of Wisconsin and Minnesota's congressional delegations. They are the best examples.
Didn't the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party end up merging with the state Democratic Party?
 
The NPL of North Dakota, Farmer-Labour of Minnesota, and the Wisconsin Progressives are the best examples. They all tended to be dominate in their states from the 1910s to the 1940s and only cared about their state's interests, and actually sent a majority of Wisconsin and Minnesota's congressional delegations. They are the best examples.

Don't forget the Populists of the 1890's. Most of them in the north ended up becoming Democrats or were part of the Democratic party. I could see a few states with their own parties

New York- Conservative and Liberal Parties like OTL though the Conservatives are like Conservative Republicans and the Liberals are more liberal republicans like Fiorello LaGuardia or even Rudy Guliani.

Minnesota- Farmer Labor Party stays separate and are the defacto left wing party in Minnesota

Wisconsin- The Progressive Party becomes a haven for socialists and is much like the Farmer-Labor party in Minnesota.

North Dakota- The Non-Partisan League is still strong but while it trends liberal there is more of a conservative element to it.


Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado all have Populist parties that regard William Jennings Bryan as their spiritual founder and are basically social conservatives who are economically against big business and try to protect the "little guy"


I also could see a kind of Dixiecrat party taking over in the South if Nixon somehow doesn't run in 68. Eventually it becomes the party of the Southern white working class with liberals being members of the "old" democratic party and the republicans being shut out except in the upper south.
 
The thing is, if the central government retains any semblance of power, national parties are going to coopt the local parties for their own infrastructure. You can have multiple parties in Congress, even if vote-splitting makes it inefficient. You can't split the presidency. Coalitions work in parliamentary systems because the parliament is elected, and then the various parties negotiate with each other for who will form the coalition, making the needed concessions to buy off coalition partners. That doesn't really work with the presidency; coalitions need to be made before the election,* which means that in practice you will have groups of local parties that will always coalition together, and very soon, you end up with national parties again. Since the rump Republicans and Democrats will still likely be around, you probably even end up with those two being the national parties still.

It's what happened to the NPL and all the rest, historically. They are still around as state-level affiliates (so e.g. Barack Obama was on the ballot in ND as the "Democratic-NPL" candidate), but on a practical level are merely part of the larger party.

It's also worth mentioning that the big-tent nature of the two parties and the decentralized nature of the American government already makes the parties essentially coalitions. The Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic Party was the most famous example, but even today it is understood and acceptable for members of congress to buck their own party on matters of concern to their state. For example, Joe Manchin may be a Democrat, but as long as West Virginia's economy is centered around coal, he's not going to back serious climate change legislation.

You could certainly develop more of the state-level affiliated parties, but full-on independent parties won't really work outside of somewhere like Puerto Rico.

*I suppose you could work something out with the members of the electoral college doing the coalition forming, but that's so alien to the American political position as to require a much earlier POD. It's also undemocratic and opaque as can be.
 
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