Two-party system
Third parties, meaning a party other than one of the two dominant parties, are possible in two-party systems, but they are often unlikely to exert much influence by gaining control of legislatures or by winning elections. While there are occasional opinions in the media expressed about the possibility of third parties emerging in the United States, for example, political insiders such as the 1980 presidential candidate John Anderson think the chances of one appearing in the early twenty-first century is remote. A report in "The Guardian" suggested that American politics has been "stuck in a two-way fight between Republicans and Democrats" since the Civil War, and that third-party runs had little meaningful success.
Electoral history of the American Independent and American parties
This is a list detailing the electoral history of the American Independent and American Parties, sorted by year. While initially a single party, a schism occurred between factions that sought either to expand the party's influence beyond into the North, and those that sought to concentrate largely within the Deep South. Though they were by 1976 established as two parties, it remains difficult to ascertain which candidates were loyal to which faction, and so they have been collected for the sake of simplicity into a single list.