Who is the best third-party presidential candidate in U.S. history?
None of them won. Several of them changed the result anyway, and a few carried states nobody expected.
1Theodore Roosevelt
Ran as the Progressive "Bull Moose" candidate in 1912 and took 27.4% of the vote and 88 electoral votes, beating the sitting Republican president.
2Ross Perot
The Texas businessman who took 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992 with a self-funded campaign built on deficit charts.
3Robert La Follette
The Wisconsin senator whose 1924 Progressive run took a sixth of the vote and carried his home state.
4Eugene V. Debs
The Socialist candidate who ran five times and took nearly a million votes in 1920 from a federal prison cell.
5Millard Fillmore
The former president who returned in 1856 on the Know Nothing ticket and carried Maryland.
6John C. Frémont
The explorer who carried eleven states in 1856 as the brand-new Republican Party's first nominee.
7Ralph Nader
The consumer advocate whose 2000 Green Party run drew under 3% and an argument that has never stopped.
8John Bell
The Constitutional Union nominee who carried three states in the four-way election of 1860.
9William Wirt
The Anti-Masonic nominee in 1832, the first third-party candidate to win a state.
10Martin Van Buren
The former president who ran again in 1848 on the Free Soil ticket and took a tenth of the national vote.
11James B. Weaver
The Populist candidate who won five states in 1892 on a platform of silver, railroads and farm debt.
12John Anderson
The Illinois congressman whose 1980 independent run took nearly 7% without carrying a state.
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