5 ms·
I wonder if you could form a mathematical model of which districts would be most amenable to a dedicated 3rd party challenger. It seems like you'd want a distr
by qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
I wonder if you could form a mathematical model of which districts would be most amenable to a dedicated 3rd party challenger. It seems like you'd want a district which is a "safe seat" (if there is a serious R/D contest in the district, people will want to avoid "throwing away their votes" by voting for a 3rd party). But you'd also want to identify a district where people are dissatisfied with their elected representative anyways. Ideally the elected representative is a significant distance from the median voter.
Maybe a good metric would be the ratio of primary ballots cast to general election ballots cast. If a small number of extremist primary voters are de facto selecting the candidate that will win the general and get the "safe seat", that suggests an opportunity for disruption by being a high profile 3rd party candidate who's just a bit more moderate than candidates the extremists select (more appealing to the median voter).
Another idea is to reach out to a bunch of independent candidates and try to recruit them for your new party to work towards critical mass.
- bobthepanda 5y agoReally the big issue here is not lack of ability but lack of will. Look at the Tea Party and the DSA; they have enough motivated bases to form parties of their own, but their strategy is to co-opt and purify the existing mainstream parties. Equivalent movements in Spain decided to make their own parties and Podemos and Vox became the next two largest parties in Spanish elections.