Why is it unlikely that any third party candidate would have a chance of winning the presidency?

Answer 1

Honestly at least a major part of it boils down to money, but media coverage, perceived credibility and established traditions play a role as well.

Campaigning for President of the United States is not free, in fact it is very far from it. Every advertisement you see on TV or in a newspaper or online or on a billboard or a yard sign carries a price tag. The candidates also need money to travel around attending conventions and giving speeches all over the nation, etc. The smaller third parties usually can't gather the kind of money required to fund all that on the same scale the Democratic and Republican parties can, if they can afford to do any such advertising. And then since either a Democrat or a Republican pretty much always wins, political monetary contributors are more likely to see donating to one of those two parties as a better investment than a third party candidate who is very unlikely to have a chance. Getting people to know your name and know your message makes all the difference in the world.

Media coverage (positive or negative) will also heavily favor the candidates from the two major parties. Simply put, they ARE the major parties, so theirs are the candidates most people want to hear about. News media wants ratings as badly as any other television station, and newspapers also want as many people as they can get reading what they print or post online, so naturally they will provide information they feel most people are interesting in hearing or reading bout. Again, exposure is pivotal.

And these two are established as the major parties because most voters in the country that are not "Independent" align with one or the other. Gallup polls for the 2011 year put Democrats at 31%, Republicans at 27%, and Independents at a record high 40%: . And come election time, most of those "Independents" regularly vote for one of the two major parties, not the "Independent" candidate or another third party.

And there is something to be said about the perceived credibility that comes with the established habits of an election being primarily a contest between one of the two major parties. Since 1852, the President has been a representative of either the Republican or the Democratic party (there were other major parties before these two that no longer exist or at least are nowhere near as significant as they used to be). That kind of established tradition gives these two parties a sort of psychological advantage because people start making the assumption that if between the two of them they have won every Presidential election for more than a century, they must be the parties that put forth the best candidates. Whether the assumption is true or not is largely a matter of personal opinion, but I think a very strong argument can be made that such an assumption exists, whether consciously or subconsciously. That can help lead people to feel less interested in doing independent research to find third party candidates instead of just going for one of the candidates offered up by the major parties.

That established tradition not only plays a directly positive role in favor of the two major parties, but at the same time also plays a directly negative role against any third party candidate. Most people feel that an independent or third party candidate cannot and will not win. Even the third party candidate himself, if he is at all honest, would tell you he expects he has a very slim chance to win. So even if you heard of an amazing third party candidate and have been following him or her from the beginning and think this person would make a great President, when you find yourself in an election booth you might think "I'm probably wasting my vote, because despite how amazing this candidate is, he/she will not win." And you may go ahead and vote for the major party candidate that most closely matches your views.

All of this adds up to a massive disadvantage for third party candidates. The fact is people vote for who they know and who they like. If they've never heard of a third party candidate because he or she could not afford to do any advertising and because the media has never even mentioned that candidate's name, the voter is highly unlike to want to vote for that candidate. And even if they have heard of them and do like them, they may vote for someone else anyway because they feel the other candidate has a better chance to win.