# 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.

*By YPB Team · Published August 12, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-is-the-best-third-party-presidential-candidate-in-us-history*

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## Current results (0 votes)

1. **Theodore 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.
2. **Ross Perot**
   The Texas businessman who took 18.9% of the popular vote in 1992 with a self-funded campaign built on deficit charts.
3. **Robert La Follette**
   The Wisconsin senator whose 1924 Progressive run took a sixth of the vote and carried his home state.
4. **Eugene V. Debs**
   The Socialist candidate who ran five times and took nearly a million votes in 1920 from a federal prison cell.
5. **Millard Fillmore**
   The former president who returned in 1856 on the Know Nothing ticket and carried Maryland.
6. **John C. Frémont**
   The explorer who carried eleven states in 1856 as the brand-new Republican Party's first nominee.
7. **Ralph Nader**
   The consumer advocate whose 2000 Green Party run drew under 3% and an argument that has never stopped.
8. **John Bell**
   The Constitutional Union nominee who carried three states in the four-way election of 1860.
9. **William Wirt**
   The Anti-Masonic nominee in 1832, the first third-party candidate to win a state.
10. **Martin Van Buren**
   The former president who ran again in 1848 on the Free Soil ticket and took a tenth of the national vote.
11. **James B. Weaver**
   The Populist candidate who won five states in 1892 on a platform of silver, railroads and farm debt.
12. **John Anderson**
   The Illinois congressman whose 1980 independent run took nearly 7% without carrying a state.

Tags: historical-figures, usa, presidents