Sorry Elon, there's already a third party

ELON MUSK just can't seem to make up his mind.

- Nia-Malika Henderson

Either he has “done enough” when it comes to political spending and will focus on his businesses or he will spend more money to start a new political party to take on the “uniparty.”

“By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!” Musk wrote on X after posting a poll on July 4.

The world’s richest man is right. For years, Americans have stated a desire for another party beyond red or blue. An October Gallup poll showed support for a third party at 58%. The numbers speak to an overall discontent with a lack of choice and distaste for rank partisanship. Third-party support ebbs and flows, but the desire for more choices is a constant.

Nevertheless, while voters claim to want more choices, once they cast their ballots, third-party candidates haven’t broken through in any meaningful way. In 2020, 1.79% voted for a third-party candidate for the White House.

In 2024, 1.85% of voters backed a candidate not named Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. A group called No Labels tried and failed to identify a credible White House candidate in 2024. Typically, third party candidates have only acted as spoilers; see Ross Perot in 1992, Ralph Nader in 2000 and Jill Stein in 2016. Part of the problem is the very high structural hurdles the two existing parties have put in place to keep rival parties from forming.