Why Do We Have Only Two Major Parties?
As has been the case for every election since 1856 — well, save one — the top two vote-getting parties in this year’s election will be … the Democrats and the Republicans. And though a few of those elections have had serious third party challenges, American democracy has remained, for all these years, a two-party system — not just at the presidential level, but also at the congressional and state level.
But why?
Our two-party system is largely a consequence of how we vote. Almost all of our elections are held under rules that allow just one winner, a single round of voting and a plurality vote (whoever gets the most votes wins). Under these rules, most voters consider voting for a third party to be a wasted vote, since the third-party candidate is unlikely to win. Political resources and ambitions flow into one of the two major parties, thus starving third parties of money and talent.
The U.S. is a rare two-party democracy. Almost all other democracies are multiparty democracies, largely because they have different “proportional” voting rules that use larger voting districts or two-round voting systems that do not punish smaller parties.
Will the U.S. always remain a two-party democracy? After all, more and more Americans are dissatisfied with and feel unrepresented by the two major parties. In fact, two-thirds of Americans say that the two parties do not do an adequate job of representing the American people and they think a third party is needed. According to Gallup, the share of Americans identifying as independents has consistently been in the high 30 to low 40 percent range since the mid-2000s.
It depends on whether we change the way we vote. Some states are trying to do just that: On the ballot today are initiatives in Alaska and Massachusetts to switch to ranked-choice voting in future elections, creating more space for third parties (since third party votes would no longer be wasted). If they pass, the two states would join Maine in using ranked-choice voting — and perhaps building wider momentum to challenge the two-party system in America.