The majority of Massachusetts voters -- about 60% -- are unenrolled in a political party, yet third parties struggle to gain political headway.
Evan Falchuk, who ran for governor in 2014 and founded the state's United Independent Party, explained the challenges that third parties face and why they can even be "dangerous" with in-house experts Alison King and Sue O’Connell during NBC10 Boston's political podcast, "Countdown to Decision 2022."
"The way the rules work, it makes it almost impossible for third parties to gain any headway," Falchuk said. "And I ended up -- after the results of the 2016 election -- saying that I thought that third parties were actually dangerous because they can impact the outcome of elections in ways that we don't like."
Falchuk's United Independent Party garnered just over 3% of the vote in the 2014 election for governor, when Charlie Baker was elected. Falchuk's party failed to gain traction and members accounted for less than 1% of the state's registered voters in 2016 — not enough to secure official party status in the 2018 state election.
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"The problem was that you're talking to voters and voters say all the time, 'I really would love there to be an independent political party.' But when you say to them, 'Listen, but in order for them to exist, you have to join it.' Voters say, 'Well, I don't want to join a party. I just want there to be unaffiliated candidates,'" Falchuk said.
For more on this and other ballot questions, listen to the latest episode of our election podcast, "Countdown to Decision 2022."
"When you explain to them that there are differential fundraising rules, there are different access to the ballot rules that make it really hard for third parties, for independent candidates to actually win elections – you know, I'm a business person and I've sold lots of things pretty successfully. If you have to explain to someone why it's beneficial for them to buy your product, you've got you've got a bit of a problem. And that was what we ran into," he continued.
The experience prompted Falchuk to do a 180 on third parties, ultimately abandoning the party and registering as a Democrat.
If you have to explain to someone why it's beneficial for them to buy your product, you've got a bit of a problem. And that's what we ran into.
Evan Falchuk, founder of the United Independent Party
Why third parties are dangerous, Flachuk said, is the 2016 election, when third party voters could have made up the difference between Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"In the 2016 election, the difference between Trump and Clinton and some key swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin and other places was smaller than the number of votes that went to Gary Johnson, the Libertarian, and to the Green Party candidate," he said. "And that tells me those voters would have otherwise voted for either Clinton or Trump. And I think, certainly for the Green Party candidate, they would have probably gone for Clinton. So we had the result of that election mean four years of Trump and the various things that have happened since that. I think that's bad. You know, I don't think that reflects what most voters want, in terms of the policy things that have taken place and the kind of destructive actions that have been taken. But you could look at that in any election and say, 'Hey, you know, if only four or 5 or 6% of voters are going to vote for a third party candidate, those votes would have gone to one of the other candidates and it skews the system to have their parties running under those circumstances."
