U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat, and Joe O’Dea, his Republican challenger.
If a very viable third political occasion ever had been to emerge within the U.S., Colorado would provide pretty much as good a check market as any state. The state’s unaffiliated voting bloc — which has mushroomed to a once-unimaginable 45% of all registered voters — dwarfs the proportion of both registered Democrats at 28% or Republicans at 25%. Colorado actually has one of many highest percentages of unaffiliated voters of all of the states.
And but, Democrats, even with solely a tad greater than a fourth of the citizens, maintain all of Colorado’s statewide elected posts in state authorities; management each chambers of the legislature, and occupy the state’s two U.S. Senate seats.
Republicans, by the identical token, are mentioned to have lifelike prospects this November of retaking the state Senate and possibly certainly one of our U.S. Senate seats. The races in a few the state’s congressional districts seem like a lifeless warmth between the 2 events, and the GOP is even hoping to unseat a number of of the Democrats holding statewide workplace in state authorities.
Why is not any third occasion on the verge of profitable these posts? Not fringe actions like Greens or Libertarians; they’ve by no means have had any actual carrying capability on the poll. Fairly, a bona fide occasion able to profitable statewide and even nationwide workplace. With such a commanding plurality of Colorado’s citizens declining to hitch both of the 2 main events, it’s solely pure to marvel why some “third manner” isn’t ready within the wings to woo voters.
The query arises each marketing campaign cycle, and political sages Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy took it up final week of their newest column in The Gazette and our affiliate, Colorado Politics. The tag workforce of retired political science professors from Colorado Springs’ esteemed Colorado Faculty — Cronin is a Democrat and Loevy a Republican — provide some insights.
They recap a few of the distinguished third-party presidential candidacies that both had been constructed round a character or had been motivated by disenchantment with the 2 main events’ candidates. What was missing was a definite, lasting platform of concepts that would take root. Therefore, Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Social gathering bid for the presidency in 1912 — after he already had served as a Republican president; Illinois U.S. Rep. John Anderson’s try as a centrist in 1980, and billionaire Ross Perot’s bid in 1992 and, as a Reform Social gathering candidate, in 1996, served principally as spoilers taking votes from one or the opposite major-party candidate.
Cronin and Loevy additionally notice how state election legal guidelines, together with Colorado’s, make it tougher for third-party candidates to get on the poll. And maybe the next hurdle is that the 2 main events may be efficient at cannibalizing third-party concepts to steal their thunder.
“The political actuality is that third events have restricted prospects within the close to time period,” they write. “When third events often generate standard and constructive concepts, one of many main events step by step modifies these concepts into their very own platform, typically as quickly as the subsequent election. Richard Nixon did this with a few of George Wallace’s concepts. In 1968, Wallace stole sufficient votes from Democrat Hubert Humphrey that Nixon gained an in depth race for the presidency.”
To which we’d add this: Even when unaffiliated voters don’t determine with Democrats or Republicans, possibly they’re roughly happy with the vary of candidates and concepts the 2 events provide them on the poll. And with out the bias of occasion affiliation, unaffiliated voters are completely happy to decide on as they see match.
Colorado’s unaffiliated voters are a formidable bloc. Each events understand it — and are courting them extra ardently than ever.
Denver Gazette Editorial Board