Constitution Party Election Results

From Scott T. Whiteman, Campaign Manager for Michael Peroutka, November 8:

On Tuesday, 129,255 people went out and voted for Michael Anthony Peroutka for President. Rather than providing a detailed report on each state, I want to highlight some of our brightest spots, and save the detailed analysis until the official results are in.

The top-ranking state was Utah, with 2,131 votes per Congressional District. This constituted .76% of the popular vote in Utah. Alaska followed with 1,612 votes per District, or .66% of the vote. Idaho, Montana and South Dakota followed with 1,538 (.52%), 1,405 (.36%) and 1,106 (.28%) respectively.

Overall, "third party" voters constituted under 1% of the popular vote. This is a drastic contraction since the modern dawn of "third parties" in 1992. In 1992, with Ross Perot and the birth of the Constitution Party (then, U.S. Taxpayers Party), "third party" voters constituted 20% of the popular vote (20,363,723). By 1996, "third party" voters shrunk by half, to 10% (9,799,522). In 2000, "third party" voters constituted less than 4% of the vote, and in the most recent election, less than 1%. Amidst this contraction, the Constitution Party's share of the "third party" vote to be had has increased, while the other "third parties" have decreased. Let me explain.

In 1992, Ross Perot had 96.7% of the "third party" vote; the Libertarian Party had 1.4% and our founder, Howard Phillips, had 0.2%. In 1996, Perot received 82.5%, the Libertarians 4.9% and the Constitution Party 1.8%. In 2000, the Green Party had its advent with Ralph Nader, which immediately grabbed 73.3% of the "third party" vote, the Libertarians grew to 9.5% and the Constitution Party received 2.5%.

By 2004, the pool of "third party" voters had contracted to only 5% of what it was in 1992. There are simply less votes to be had. While the Libertarian share of the "third party" votes increased from 9.5% in 2000 to 35.8% in 2004, their actual number of voters decreased by about 5,000. This was a contraction of 1.4%. Additionally, the Nader/Cobb Green Campaign experienced a contraction of 82.9% since 2000.

I attribute the great contraction of the "third party" pool of voters to the allegedly heightened Boogie Man factor of recent elections. Since 1996, both the Republicans and the Democrats have been running fear-mongering campaigns, villifying their opponant, and scaring their base into voting for an acknowledged "lesser of two evils." Both Ralph Nader and Michael Peroutka experience this in the Campaign.

Despite the contractions, and the Boogie Man, the Constitution Party's share of "third party" voters increased from 2.5% to 12.5%, and in real numbers increased by more than 30,000, which is a 31.1% expansion, rather than a contraction, in four years.

Not a bad showing, but not nearly good enough, either. We have a long way to go before the Constitution Party makes a significant impact on a presidential election. I'm disappointed that we didn't do better; but, of course, I never expected a win. It was a vote of principle, for me.