History
1980 election cycle
The first Citizens Party National Convention met in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Cleveland Plaza Hotel from April 10 to 13, 1980. There were 260 delegates from 30 states present. The "proposals presented at the convention reportedly numbered some 300 items, a list largely irreducible to a manageable platform ... Units of the party organization on the state level thus became more or less responsible for delineating their own briefer versions of the list of goals" (Kruschke, p. 46). The party nominated Barry Commoner and LaDonna Harris (then, at that time, the wife of Democratic senator Fred Harris of Oklahoma) for president and vice president respectively. La Donna Harris was "a leading feminist and a Comanche Indian [who] labeled herself as 'a woman of color.'"
In order to increase public awareness of its existence, the Citizens Party ran a commercial on 600 radio stations which used profanity (the advertisement began with an actor exclaiming: "Bullshit! ... Carter, Reagan and Anderson, it's all bullshit!"). Several of the radio stations tried to remove the profanity, but the Federal Communications Commission forbade them to do so. [4]
As the party's presidential candidate in 1980, Commoner achieved ballot status in 29 states (22 and DC under the Citizens Party label, six as an Independent, and in Pennsylvania with the Consumer Party), although his major activity was centered in the large states of California, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the national ticket in the presidential election, twenty-two other Citizens candidates appeared on the ballot in various states, including three for the U.S. Senate and eleven for the U.S. House. Commoner received 221,083 votes. Although Commoner did not garner more than one percent in any state, the party received enough support to be the first minor party to qualify for federal matching funds (about $157,000) for the 1984 elections.
1982 election cycle
In 1981, the Citizens Party won an election for the first time when Terry Bouricius was elected to the board of Aldermen in Burlington, Vermont. In 1982, the Citizens Party fielded two candidates for governorships (Pennsylvania and Texas), three candidates for the Senate (Pennsylvania, Texas, and Vermont), and 15 candidates for the U.S. House.
1984 election cycle
In 1984, the Citizens Party held its second national convention at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota, from August 10 to 12, 1984. There were 125 delegates from 30 states present. The convention nominated Sonia Johnson of Virginia, “a radical feminist,” for president and Richard Walton of Rhode Island for vice president. Johnson had been excommunicated from the LDS Church in 1979 as a result of her outspoken support of the Equal Rights Amendment. [5] In 1982 Johnson undertook a publicized 37-day fast which was meant to encourage the Illinois legislature to ratify the ERA. [6]
Two other minor parties endorsed the Citizens ticket in 1984. The Socialist Party USA National Convention in New York City from September 3 to 5, 1983 voted to try to run a joint ticket with the Citizens Party, and the Peace and Freedom Party in California endorsed Johnson for president (although it ran Emma Wong Mar for vice president).
Despite the two additional endorsements, the Citizens Party suffered serious setbacks during 1984. It ran fewer candidates for office: one for the Senate (Illinois), one for Governor (Vermont), and two for the U.S. House. Johnson appeared on the ballot in thirteen states as the Citizens candidate, two as an Independent, one (Arkansas) as the Citizens Group nominee, and one (Pennsylvania) as the Consumer nominee. The Citizens Party vote fell by two thirds, to 72,153, although Johnson significantly improved upon Commoner's totals in Pennsylvania and Louisiana.
1986 election cycle and party dissolution
In the 1986 election, the Citizens Party once again offered four candidates: two for governor (Pennsylvania and Rhode Island), one for the Senate (Pennsylvania), and one for the U.S. House (Minnesota). The Pennsylvania candidates used the Consumer Party label.
After the disappointing number of votes cast in favor of the Citizens Party nominees, it dissolved. The 1987 Socialist Party National Convention nominated its own ticket of Willa Kenoyer (a former co-chair of the Citizens Party) and Ron Ehrenreich for the 1988 presidential election, while the Consumer Party in Pennsylvania resumed its separate existence, picking up the remaining pieces of the Citizens Party.
Presidential election summary
The Libertarian Party (LP) is a classical liberal political party in the United States that promotes civil liberties, non-interventionism, laissez-faire capitalism, and limiting the size and scope of government. The party was conceived in August 1971 at meetings in the home of David F. Nolan in Westminster, Colorado, and was officially formed on December 11, 1971, in Colorado Springs. The organizers of the party drew inspiration from the works and ideas of the prominent Austrian school economist Murray Rothbard. The founding of the party was prompted in part due to concerns about the Nixon administration, the Vietnam War, conscription, and the introduction of fiat money.
The 1836 United States presidential election was the 13th quadrennial presidential election, held from Thursday, November 3 to Wednesday, December 7, 1836. In the third consecutive election victory for the Democratic Party, incumbent Vice President Martin Van Buren defeated four candidates fielded by the nascent Whig Party.
The 1840 United States presidential election was the 14th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, October 30 to Wednesday, December 2, 1840. Economic recovery from the Panic of 1837 was incomplete, and Whig nominee William Henry Harrison defeated incumbent President Martin Van Buren of the Democratic Party. The election marked the first of two Whig victories in presidential elections, but was the only one where they won a majority of the popular vote. This was the third rematch in American history, which would not occur again until 1892.
The 1852 United States presidential election was the 17th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 2, 1852. Democrat Franklin Pierce defeated Whig nominee General Winfield Scott. A third party candidate from the Free Soil party, John P. Hale, also ran and came in third place, but got no electoral votes.
The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states had already abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union. This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president. It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1904, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016.
The 1864 United States presidential election was the 20th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Near the end of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.
The 1868 United States presidential election was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1868. In the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horatio Seymour of the Democratic Party. It was the first presidential election to take place after the conclusion of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in the reconstructed Southern states, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act.
The 1888 United States presidential election was the 26th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1888. Republican nominee Benjamin Harrison, a former U.S. senator from Indiana, defeated incumbent Democratic President Grover Cleveland of New York. It was the third of five U.S. presidential elections in which the winner did not win the national popular vote, which would not occur again until the 2000 US presidential election. Cleveland was the last incumbent Democratic president to lose reelection until Jimmy Carter in 1980.
The 1916 United States presidential election was the 33rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1916. Incumbent Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeated former associate justice of the Supreme Court Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate.
The 1964 United States presidential election was the 45th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1964. Incumbent Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson defeated Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in a landslide victory. Johnson was the fourth and most recent vice president to succeed the presidency following the death of his predecessor and win a full term in his own right. Johnson won the largest share of the popular vote for the Democratic Party in history at 61.1%. As of 2024, this remains the highest popular vote percentage of any candidate since the advent of widespread popular elections in 1824.
The 1980 United States presidential election was the 49th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 4, 1980. The Republican nominee, former California governor Ronald Reagan, defeated incumbent Democratic President Jimmy Carter in a landslide victory. This was the first election since 1932 in which an elected incumbent president was defeated, as well as the first election since 1888 that saw the defeat of an incumbent Democratic president.
The 1984 United States presidential election was the 50th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1984. Incumbent Republican President Ronald Reagan and his running mate, incumbent Vice President George H. W. Bush, were re-elected to a second term in a landslide. They defeated the Democratic ticket of former Vice President Walter Mondale and Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro.
In the United States, the Electoral College is the group of presidential electors that is formed every four years during the presidential election for the sole purpose of voting for the president and vice president. The process is described in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. The number of electoral votes a state has equals its number of Senators (2) plus its number of Representatives in the House of Representatives, the latter being dependent on the Census's reported population. Each state appoints electors using legal procedures determined by its legislature, equal in number to its congressional delegation totaling 535 electors in the 50 states. The Twenty-third Amendment from 1961 granted the federal District of Columbia three electors, bringing the total number of electors to 538. Federal office holders, including senators and representatives, cannot be electors. Of the current 538 electors, a simple majority of 270 or more electoral votes is required to elect the president and vice president. If no candidate achieves a majority there, a contingent election is held by the House of Representatives to elect the president and by the Senate to elect the vice president.
The Socialist Party of the United States of America is a socialist political party in the United States. SPUSA formed in 1973, one year after the Socialist Party of America splintered into three: Social Democrats, USA, the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (split), and SPUSA.
In the politics of the United States, elections are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, the nation's head of state, the president, is elected indirectly by the people of each state, through an Electoral College. Today, these electors almost always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the federal legislature, the Congress, are directly elected by the people of each state. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. There are also elected offices at the local level, in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages; as well as for special districts and school districts which may transcend county and municipal boundaries.
The Progressive Party, popularly nicknamed the Bull Moose Party, was a third party in the United States formed in 1912 by former president Theodore Roosevelt after he lost the presidential nomination of the Republican Party to his former protégé turned rival, incumbent president William Howard Taft. The new party was known for taking advanced positions on progressive reforms and attracting leading national reformers. The party was also ideologically deeply connected with America's radical-liberal tradition.
The Libertarian Party of the United States was formed in Colorado Springs in the home of Luke Zell by a group of individuals led by David Nolan on December 11, 1971, after several months of debate among members of the Committee to Form a Libertarian Party, founded July 17. The formation was prompted in part by price controls and the end of the Gold Standard implemented by President Richard Nixon. The Libertarian Party viewed the dominant Republican and Democratic parties as having diverged from what they viewed as the libertarian principles of the American Founding Fathers. This group included John Hospers, Edward Crane, Manuel Klausner, Murray Rothbard, Roy Childs, D. Frank Robinson, Theodora (Tonie) Nathan, and Jim Dean.
The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the Electoral College. These electors then cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for president, and for vice president. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for president, the House of Representatives elects the president; likewise if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for vice president, then the Senate elects the vice president.
The Citizens Party of the United States is a political party in the United States. Founded by Michael Thompson in Wayne, Pennsylvania in 2004 as the New American Independent Party (NAIP), the first meeting took place in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania on the day of the general election. The New American Independent Party changed its name to the Citizens Party in January 2011. The transition to the name Citizens Party lasted several months.
