Support for 3rd party, independents hit US record high

Ramin Mazaheri 
Press TV, Chicago

A new poll indicates that a legacy of the 2020 election in the United States may be a rejection of the two mainstream political parties. For the first time ever, a top pollster has found that half the country now identifies as an “independent”, while support for a third party is also at a record high.

Following the bitterly disputed 2020 election campaign, top pollster Gallup has found that support for third-parties is at its highest point ever in the United States. Sixty-two percent of people agree that a third-party is needed because Democrats and Republicans “do such a poor job representing the American people.”

Another polling record was also recorded - the number of Americans who identify as an “independent” is now at 50 percent.

Ex-president Donald Trump, who remains banned from top US social media, issued a rare statement which attacked top Republican leadership. That’s being interpreted as a sign that he may stay within the mainstream and try to make so-called “Trumpism” the undisputed platform of the Republican Party.

However, there is much speculation that Trump will start a new third party. Polls say a Trump-led third party would attract not just two-thirds of Republicans but also 30 percent of independents and even 15 percent of Democrats.

The party would push Republicans into third place, usher in a new era of multiparty plurality and end what is probably the world's oldest political duopoly.

Trump won in 2016 by running as a so-called “outsider candidate” and while he is unemployed four years later, rejection of the two mainstream parties is now the majority sentiment.

The most popular third-parties currently in the US are the Libertarians, who are associated with a strong demand for individualism, the Greens, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and the Alliance Party, a coalition of independents. Those four parties combined for under 2 percent of the 2020 presidential vote.

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