Over the past couple of weeks, two candidates — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West — have both announced that they'll be running as independents in the 2024 presidential election.
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The news comes after a poll from Gallup, published on October 4th, found that 63% of respondents believed that the US political system would benefit from a third major party — the highest figure for the last 20 years — as the Republican and Democrat campaigns ramp up ahead of the November 2024 election.
Interestingly, this sentiment isn't entirely new — 50-60% of US adults have typically expressed a similar desire for a third party, although no such party has stepped forward as a credible contender. In fact, the last time a third party truly emerged was over 165 years ago when the Republican Party supplanted the Whigs in what political historians call a realigning election. Ever since then, however, it’s strictly been a two-horse race.
