American 3rd Parties- How to not be Protest vote

Right now, things are stacked against third parties. For example, in presidential debates, to be on stage you have to be getting at least 15% in a lot of the major polls. The Two party system is also an issue. It encourages tactical voting therefore Libertarians will more likely vote for Republican than follow their ideology and vote Libertarian. 83% of people think there is a problem with America's 2 Party system, yet with the challenges of the system and often religious faith in the constitution this is unlikely to change. 3rd parties can switch tactic to win more support and here is what they are doing wrong:

Local Support

They don’t go after local elections, or at least, that hard. They are only focused on the big presidential election, not realizing that you really need to have strong local bases to pull that off. They need to focus first on winning local elections, than the national ones. Whilst Presidential election is great for publicity of the party it does very little to truly influence elections. 3rd Parties need to identify areas of the country they are strong and campaign solely to those people. Looking at nations where 3rd parties have done well in first past the post can help them. The Centrist Liberal Democrats in Britain does well in areas that are Socially Liberal and rich. Winning seats in rural areas of the Tories as well as some city seats from them as well. The Libertarians could brand themselves as a rural alternative to the GOP. The Greens could also run in very Liberal areas alone to try and pinch a seat or two in congress. However the system for 3rd parties favors party's that may support secession. With Californian secession picking up pace could we see a Californian independence party win seats in Congress? Scotland's Scottish Nationalists control the majority of Scottish seats in their parliament. There the local support could give them the edge. The system favors regional support, so play to the system.

Staying on message

Also, they often speak only to niche market, until it’s no longer convenient, than they switch to another group. Seriously, stay consistent, no one wants to support or has confidence in a party with no principles.

These parties often sound like the major parties, many promises but no solutions. What people want are solutions, not promises. We want something different. Acquiring a media outlet or two to help get the message out could help.

Campaign for electoral reform

With some of the Right wing parties this is less likely but with the American people becoming increasingly disillusioned with the 2 party system and Congress in general electoral reform could be a vote winner. Equally Libertarians might find themselves getting some seats in the House if they were elected through proportional representation. Congress needs fixing and this could be a piece in the puzzle. Of course this is tricky when you need a constitutional amendment to pass this reform. Which would be passed by parties that would know it would only lose them power. Tricky to impossible but a good strategy nevertheless.

Represent the People

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans truly represent the people. They are good at representing big corporations and themselves alone. If a party could show they truly would help the people with their policies they could see their polling going up and up. I think the Greens offering a 2nd New Deal have the greatest opportunity. A move to European Social Democracy to finally help the working man. Bernie Sanders showed their are acres of room left of the Democrats that could be taken on by a 3rd Party. Whether its the greens or another Progressive it looks like the best bet for mounting a challenge to the establishment. However whichever party does it they need to show the huge amounts of corruption in Washington.

It's a tricky task but 3rd Parties can increase their vote shares using a number of new strategies.

#AmericanPolitics #3rdparties #Democrats #Republicans #electoralreform