The Illusion of Third-Party Support: Why Third-Party Candidates Struggle to Consolidate Disaffected Voters

Abstract Voters in the United States consistently express to pollsters that they would like a third-party option, yet third-party candidates rarely earn their votes. In this study, we demonstrate why expressed support for a third-party candidate does not match actual support because the inclination to vote for a third-party candidate does not align with a consistent political ideology. We utilize a novel experiment (N = 777) to demonstrate that, though there is a sizable number of people generally supportive of a third-party candidate, once a candidate is placed on the ideological spectrum, many of these voters are unlikely to support them. We then present a study of the 2024 U.S. presidential election (N = 556) in which we find robust desire to support a third-party candidate in general but a complete absence of specific candidate support. Overall, we find that third-party candidates face considerable ideological barriers to actual support at the ballot box despite voters’ professed desire for a third-party candidate.