For historical context, here's the link to the Wiki of popular vote history:
The leading third party candidate in the last three elections has been the Libertarian candidate:
2020 - Jo Jorgensen (0 Electoral Votes, 1.87m Popular Votes, cc 1.12%)
2016 - Gary "What is Aleppo" Johnson (0 Electoral Votes, 4.49m Popular Votes, cc 3.28%)
2012 - Gary "Before What Is Aleppo" Johnson (0 Electoral Votes, 1.28m Popular Votes, cc 0.99%)
With approximately 240 million eligible voters in the US as of the 2020 election, a third party candidate would need, at approximately 60% turnout, 2.9 million votes to achieve a 2% share of the popular vote.
Resolves YES for any non-Republican, non-Democrat candidate in the 2024 US General Election for President receiving 2% or higher of final popular vote total. Will not resolve until Inauguration Day 2025
Edited note: This market does not round up. The minimum must be a percentage of 0.02 or higher.
Related questions
@EricBolton It’ll still resolve YES, because we only need one.
Having two or more third party candidates win at least 2% of the popular vote seems almost as likely as none this cycle.
@MaybeNotDepends At least in the U.S., running as an independent isn’t much different than running on the Libertarian ticket or the Green ticket, or any other minor party with negligible influence on the national stage. If a candidate appears on the ballot without an R or a D next to their name, I’ll count it toward this market.
@LBeesley There'll be peace in Middle East before Cenk gets 2% of the vote (if he even miraculously ends up being judged eligible to run anyways)
@MaybeNotDepends If they get votes as a candidate for president, it’ll count. Single in this case means an individual candidate as opposed to collectively pointing at non-major party candidates and the overall share of the popular and potential electoral vote. If I must edit the question to clarify this, I will. But from the looks of the market, most everyone understood the original question.
@8 Why should it be above 50%? The base rate is much lower than that. Before 2016, the last time it happened was 2000. In fact, aside from 2000, 2016, and 2020, no third party candidate has even gotten one percent of the popular vote in the 21st century.
Maybe you think there's some reason the 2024 election will have more third party voters, but I think people tend to vote for the two major parties when the stakes are high, and they will be considered high in 2024.
@JosephNoonan lol well 2000 and 2016 are 1/3 of the elections in the 21st century, so that's not exactly statistically significant. If you expand your window back to 1990, 4 out of the last 8 presidential elections have had >2%.
@BenjaminShindel Fair enough, though I think recent elections are more relevant than elections that happened a long time ago. Current day politics are too different from even 1996 for me to think there's likely to be another strong third-party challenger. Which is part of why I said the base rate was much lower than 50% - I was downweighting elections that were less recent (e.g., 2000). But maybe that just makes the base rate meaningless because I don't have a large enough sample size.
@Stralor A rounded-up raw average of the leading third party popular vote getter in the last three election cycles (edit: closer to 1.8 percent). May not be the best method to set the bar at 2%, but I had to start somewhere
@JoshuaB https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4035698-nearly-half-of-voters-would-consider-backing-third-party-candidate-in-2024-poll/
If there is a Biden vs Trump rematch, I think this has a very high chance of happening.
@JoshuaB it's more that a contest between two unusually unpopular candidates tends to send votes towards third-party candidates
@AndrewHartman This.
If Biden vs Trump or Biden vs DeSantis (very likely) then I think this is very likely. LP specifically has been looking good lately. We would need to have a popular democratic nominee surface out of nowhere for this to be unlikely.
@JoshuaB I didn’t realize this market would be so popular, and I’m unsure what’s driving its recent uptick. I’ve gotten at least 15 notifications of new traders over the weekend, and I don’t remember boosting it.
(Edited out because I can’t read, apparently)
I personally think the two major parties are at risk of fracture that any candidate unsatisfied with the results of their parties’ respective primaries will weigh a third-party candidacy just to stay on the ballot.
Not sure what RFK Jr will do once reality sets in.
As for the Republicans, where do I even begin?