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Would it be possible for there to be a TL where there are three American political parties: Democrats, Republicans, and Workers' Party/Labour?
Also, assuming this happened, who would be their leaders, presidential candidates, etc.? (Huey Long running at least once, I should think.)
 
Would it be possible for there to be a TL where there are three American political parties: Democrats, Republicans, and Workers' Party/Labour?
Also, assuming this happened, who would be their leaders, presidential candidates, etc.? (Huey Long running at least once, I should think.)

There's no possibility of a three-party system in American politics. This is because one must gain more than a majority of the College in order to win elections. A Labour Party could gain EVs, but either party must fall for the party to be part of a party system.
 

Cryostorm

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There's no possibility of a three-party system in American politics. This is because one must gain more than a majority of the College in order to win elections. A Labour Party could gain EVs, but either party must fall for the party to be part of a party system.

I have to disagree with this, the problem with modern third parties and their lack of influence is the fact that they focus on the presidency above all else, instead of trying to gain congressional seats, and also try to influence or take control of one of the two major parties, such as the libertarians and religious right with the Republicans. Also a labour party would have to be highly regional and based mostly in the north east and cities. Lastly the natural division of politics should stabilize in four parties but the United States has been to conservative for that.
 
I have to disagree with this, the problem with modern third parties and their lack of influence is the fact that they focus on the presidency above all else, instead of trying to gain congressional seats, and also try to influence or take control of one of the two major parties, such as the libertarians and religious right with the Republicans. Also a labour party would have to be highly regional and based mostly in the north east and cities. Lastly the natural division of politics should stabilize in four parties but the United States has been to conservative for that.

My idea would be that the requirements to win the presidency are different.
Rather than having to win a majority of electoral seats, you just have to win more seats than your rivals.

How would affect the evolution of American politics?
 
My idea would be that the requirements to win the presidency are different.
Rather than having to win a majority of electoral seats, you just have to win more seats than your rivals.

How would affect the evolution of American politics?

Then you need POD at the time of the creation on the Constitution.
 
There's no possibility of a three-party system in American politics. This is because one must gain more than a majority of the College in order to win elections. A Labour Party could gain EVs, but either party must fall for the party to be part of a party system.

The Electoral College only affects Presidential elections. A third party could become a force in Congress and local government if it could lock down a region like the solid south.
 
The Electoral College only affects Presidential elections. A third party could become a force in Congress and local government if it could lock down a region like the solid south.

The Populists tried that with the West, but the Democrats moved to the left and destroyed it.
 
IMO it is the presidential system, more than first-past-the-post, that accounts for the weakness of third parries in America. After all, FPTP has not prevented sometimes substantial third parties from developing in the UK or Canada. Voters do not want to "waste" their vote for president, and while it is true that a third party could theoretically influence the result of a close election by getting a few electors and then bargaining either in the Electoral College itself or in Congress, such bargaining has widely been considered illegitimate, at least since the "corrupt bargain" of 1824-5.

And this fact affects the third party vote not only for the presidency but also for Congress, etc. Americans generally do not take a political party seriously--even in elections for Congress or for state offices--unless it can seriously compete for the presidency. (After all, in the UK or Canada, even if a party has only a few members of Parliament, these members can, in a hung Parliament, help decide who forms the Government. They have no such power in the US, unless the election goes into Congress, which most people consider a result they want to avoid.)

And of course another reason for the lack of a third party is that the two major parties *are* significantly different ideologically, even if not as much as some people wish they would be. If both major parties were ideologically almost indistinguishable, there would be--despite the presidential nature of American elections, and despite the FPTP electoral system for Congress--many more third party votes than there are now. Some evidence of this is that in fact there *was* considerable third-party voting in the US before the New Deal (and no doubt there would have been more if not for the special case created in the South by the racial situation). See http://economics.mit.edu/files/1224 "Over the period 1890 to 1920, third party candidates for the U.S. House, Governor, and U.S. Senator won more than 10% of the total vote in 16 states.3 In contrast, over the period 1940 to 1970, third party candidates for these three offices never won 10% of the total vote in any state. More than five times as many third party congressmen were elected to the U.S.House in the period1890 to 1920 as compared to the period 1940 to 1970.4 Furthermore, in state legislatures third parties won a plurality of seats in either the upper or lower chamber of nine state legislatures during the first period (1890-1920), compared with none during the second period (1940-1970)."
 
I was imagining a TL where there are four American parties. Left-wing labour/socialist democrats, centre-left Democrats, centre-right Christian Moderates, and right-wing Republicans.
 
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