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Electoral fusion in the United States is an arrangement where two or more U.S. political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, [1] allowing that candidate to receive votes on multiple party lines in the same election. [2]
Electoral fusion is also known as fusion voting, cross endorsement, multiple party nomination, multi-party nomination, plural nomination, and ballot freedom. [3] [4]
Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States; however, as of 2024, it remains legal and common only in New York and Connecticut. It was once legal in every state and credited by advocates as being instrumental in enabling major democratic advances. [5]
In 2016, Business Insider wrote: "Fusion voting gives voters a chance to support a major candidate while registering their unhappiness with that candidate's party. A cross-endorsement from a smaller party like the Women's Equality Party can also help inform voters about where candidates stand on certain issues". [6]
In 2019, The Nation wrote: "Fusion is a response to the winner-take-all electoral system. It solves the “wasted vote” or 'spoiler' dilemmas that otherwise plague third parties, and allows citizens who don’t fit neatly into the Democratic or Republican boxes to nevertheless participate constructively in politics". [1]
Before the Civil War, fusion balloting was a common electoral tactic of abolitionist forces, who formed a number of anti-slavery third parties, including the Liberty and Free Soil parties. These and other abolitionist third parties cross-nominated major party candidates running under the Whig label, fusing more than one party behind a single candidate. [5] [7]
After the Civil War, agrarian interest groups and the political parties they founded continued to use fusion balloting to form alliances between third parties and the weaker of the two major parties, usually the Democrats in the West and Midwest. [8] In the 19th and early 20th century, minor parties used fusion as a way to signal that their support for a major party candidate brought a meaningful number of voters to the candidate. [9] Votes for fusion candidates were tallied first by party, then added together to produce the outcome. Argersinger (1980) argues that this helped ‘‘maintain a significant third party tradition by guaranteeing that dissenters’ votes could be more than symbolic protest’’ (p. 288). [8] Fusion allowed minor parties to avoid the 'wasted vote' and 'spoiler' dilemmas that small parties face in a non-proportional voting system. [10]
The People's Party (also known as the Populists) is regarded as the most successful third party of the era. [11] That success produced a counter-reaction from the dominant major parties, who then used state legislatures to enact bans against fusion in the late nineteenth and early 20th century. [8] In northern and western states, fusion was largely banned by Republican-led legislatures. One Republican Minnesota state legislator said: "We don't propose to allow the Democrats to make allies of the Populists, Prohibitionists, or any other party, and get up combination tickets against us. We can whip them single-handed, but don't intend to fight all creation." [12] In southern states, fusion was largely banned by Democrats who supported Jim Crow, in an attempt to prevent political alliances between newly-enfranchised Black voters and poor white farmers. [13]
Most states banned fusion by the early 20th century. South Dakota banned the practice in 1999, [14] Delaware banned it in 2011, [15] and South Carolina banned it in 2022. [16] In Twin Cities Area New Party v. McKenna (1996), the United States Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting electoral fusion does not violate the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. [17]
Electoral fusion was once widespread in the United States, but as of 2024, it remains legal and common only in New York and Connecticut. [5] It is partially legal in three others: California allows fusion in presidential elections only, and Pennsylvania and Maryland permit it in certain elections, including but not limited to the judiciary. [18] [ page needed ] In Oregon and Vermont, a system of dual-labeling exists, which allows a candidate to list multiple party endorsements on a single line, but disallows the traditional fusion system in which a minor party has its own ballot line and votes are tallied by party. [19] In New Hampshire, fusion is legal in rare cases when primary elections are won by write-in candidates. [20]
As of 2024, the Alianza de País in Puerto Rico, the New Jersey Moderate Party, the Common Sense Party in Michigan and the United Kansas Party are attempting to use litigation to bring back fusion voting in their states. [5] [21] [22]
In 1872, both the newly formed Liberal Republican Party and the Democratic party nominated the Liberal Republican Horace Greeley as their candidate for President of the United States: "If [the Democratic party] was to stand any chance at all against Grant, it must avoid putting up a candidate of its own who would merely split the opposition vote. It must take Greeley." [23]
In the Presidential election of 1896, William Jennings Bryan was nominated by both the Democratic Party and the Populist Party, albeit with different vice presidential candidates, Arthur Sewall for the Democrats and Thomas E. Watson for the Populists. This election led to the downfall of the Populist Party, especially in Southern states (such as Watson's Georgia, as well as North Carolina and Tennessee) where the Populist party had engaged in electoral fusion or other alliances with Republicans against the dominant Bourbon Democrats. [24] [25]
In the 1936 and 1940, the American Labor Party nominated Franklin Roosevelt for president, and in 1944, the Liberal Party of New York cross-nominated Roosevelt, fusing with the ALP. Roosevelt won the state of New York in each election, but in 1940 and 1944 he would not have won New York without the support of votes gained via the fusion parties and their voters. [26]
Donald Trump appeared on the 2016 presidential ballot in California with two ballot labels by his name, [27] as the nominee of both the Republican Party and the American Independent Party, a small far-right party. Trump was the first fusion presidential candidate on the California ballot in at least eighty years. [28]
In 1936, labor leaders in New York City took advantage of fusion and founded the American Labor Party (ALP). Their immediate goal was to provide a way for New Yorkers who despised the Tammany Hall political machine to support Franklin Roosevelt without voting for the Democratic Party. In its first showing at the polls, the party garnered a significant amount of the vote in New York City, but was not important with regard to Roosevelt's victory. In the 1937 election cycle, the ALP built on it past performance by electing members to the city council, and by delivering so many votes to Mayor LaGuardia that the New York Times ran a front page article declaring that the ALP held the balance of power in city and state politics. The importance of the ALP was demonstrated again in 1938 when the party provided the margin of victory for the Democratic candidate for Governor, and in 1940 when the ALP did the same for President Roosevelt. In the 1944 presidential election, fusion provided CIO unions in New York an opportunity to build and back a labor party, an uncommon occurrence in the United States. Labor leaders knew that fusion permitted them to field candidates and win elections on the American Labor Party line in local elections, and to back Democrats in statewide or national races where they did not have the capacity to field successful candidates. Given the presence of fusion in New York, the Greater New York Industrial Union Council (GNYIUC), the CIO's local labor federation in New York, formally affiliated with the party making it the political arm of the New York CIO. This relationship would continue until 1948 when the GNYIUC opted to back Henry Wallace for president, instead of using fusion to back President Truman. This led to internal conflicts within the CIO and ultimately contributed to the decision by the National CIO to revoke the charter of the GNYIUC, thereby ending its relationship with the ALP. [9]
As of 2023, to obtain or maintain automatic ballot access, a party's candidate for Governor of New York in midterm years or President of the United States in presidential years must receive either 130,000 votes or 2% of votes cast (whichever is greater) on that party's line.[ citation needed ]
Other parties, such as the Libertarian Party of New York, the Green Party of New York, and others, now seek ballot access by, first, getting a gubernatorial candidate on the ballot via petition (by collecting 45,000 valid signatures of registered voters), and then by getting 130,000 votes for that candidate on their line. As a general rule, neither party uses electoral fusion, and both rely on their own candidates. The Green Party, which had first achieved ballot status in 1998, failed to gain 50,000 votes (then the requirement) and also lost its ballot status in 2002, but regained its line when the 2010 election results were certified. In 2018, Larry Sharpe, the Libertarian Party candidate for governor, received over 90,000 votes, giving the party ballot status for the first time in its history. [29]
In July 2019, the New York Legislature passed a budget bill that included the creation of a Public Campaign Financing Commission, which was given authority to investigate and create rules for public financing of campaigns. [30] The Conservative Party of New York and the Working Families Party each filed lawsuits against the state in response, alleging that the commission was a disguised attempt to end fusion voting and thus the existence of New York's third parties. [31]
Prior to 1958, Oregon practiced a form of fusion that required the state to list multiple nominating parties on the candidate's ballot line. Sylvester Pennoyer was elected governor in 1886 and 1890 as a candidate of the Democratic and People's parties. In 1906, seven members of the Oregon House were also elected as candidates of the People's Party and either the Democratic or Republican parties. In 2008, a lawsuit was brought by the Independent Party of Oregon against the Oregon Secretary of State claiming that modifications to the ballot design statute in 1995 once again required the state to list multiple nominating parties on the candidate's ballot line. The lawsuit gave rise to legislation [32] to allow candidates to list up to three party labels after their name. This bill passed both houses of the Oregon legislature during the 2009 legislative session. Governor Ted Kulongoski signed the bill into law on 23 July 2009.[ citation needed ]
In Pennsylvania, fusion can occur when members of a party write in the name of a member of a different party in a primary election, and secure enough write-in votes to nominate that party's candidate. For example, if Bob Jones is running for school board in a primary election as a Democrat and secures both enough votes from members of his own party as well as enough write-in votes from members of the Republican Party, then electoral fusion occurs, and Bob will appear on the ballot as both a Republican and a Democrat. Similarly, a member of one party may lose their own party's nomination in a primary election but gain enough write-in votes from members of the opposing party to win that party's nomination. For example, in May 2023, Stephen Zappala lost the Democratic primary for Allegheny County District Attorney to challenger Matt Dugan. However, although Zappala is a Democrat, Zappala received the requisite number (500 or more) of write-in votes from Republicans to appear as a Republican on the ballot in November 2023. [33] [34] Running on the ballot as a Republican, Zappala won the general election in November 2023, beating challenger Matt Dugan.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the heyday of the sewer socialists, the Republican and Democratic parties would agree not to run candidates against each other in some districts, concentrating instead on defeating the Socialists. These candidates were usually called "non-partisan", but sometimes were termed "fusion" candidates instead. [35]
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 already had 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 1884 United States presidential election was the 25th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1884. In the election, Governor Grover Cleveland of New York defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. It was set apart by unpleasant mudslinging and shameful personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.
The 1892 United States presidential election was the 27th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1892. In the fourth rematch in American history, the Democratic nominee, former president Grover Cleveland, defeated the Republican incumbent, President Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's victory made him the first and, to date, the only person in American history to be elected to a non-consecutive second presidential term. It was also the first of two occasions that incumbents were defeated in consecutive elections—the second being Gerald Ford's loss to Jimmy Carter in 1976, followed by Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
The 1896 United States presidential election was the 28th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896. Former Governor William McKinley, the Republican nominee, defeated former Representative William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee. The 1896 campaign, which took place during an economic depression known as the Panic of 1893, was a political realignment that ended the old Third Party System and began the Fourth Party System.
The 1900 United States presidential election was the 29th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1900. In a re-match of the 1896 race, incumbent Republican President William McKinley defeated his Democratic challenger, William Jennings Bryan. McKinley's victory made him the first president to win a consecutive re-election since Ulysses S. Grant accomplished the same feat in 1872. Until 1956, this would be the last time in which an incumbent Republican president would win re-election after serving a full term in office. This election saw the fifth rematch in presidential history but the first to produce the same winner both times; neither would occur again until 1956.
The 1904 United States presidential election was the 30th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1904. Incumbent Republican President Theodore Roosevelt defeated the conservative Democratic nominee, Alton B. Parker. Roosevelt's victory made him the first president who ascended to the presidency upon the death of his predecessor to win a full term in his own right. This was also the second presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016.
The 1908 United States presidential election was the 31st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1908. Republican Party nominee William Howard Taft defeated three-time Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan.
The 1912 United States presidential election was the 32nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1912. Democratic Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey unseated incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft while defeating former President Theodore Roosevelt and Socialist Party nominee Eugene V. Debs.
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 1924 United States presidential election was the 35th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1924. In a three-way contest, incumbent Republican President Calvin Coolidge won election to a full term. Coolidge was the second vice president to ascend to the presidency and then win a full term.
The 1928 United States presidential election was the 36th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1928. Republican former Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover defeated the Democratic nominee, Governor Al Smith of New York. After President Calvin Coolidge declined to seek reelection, Hoover emerged as his party's frontrunner. As Hoover's party opponents failed to unite around a candidate, Hoover received a large majority of the vote at the 1928 Republican National Convention. The strong state of the economy discouraged some Democrats from running, and Smith was nominated on the first ballot of the 1928 Democratic National Convention. Hoover and Smith had been widely known as potential presidential candidates long before the 1928 campaign, and both were generally regarded as outstanding leaders. Both were newcomers to the presidential race and presented in their person and record an appeal of unknown potency to the electorate. Both faced serious discontent within their respective parties' membership, and both lacked the wholehearted support of their parties' organization.
The 1932 United States presidential election was the 37th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1932. The election took place against the backdrop of the Great Depression. The incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover was defeated in a landslide by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor of New York and the vice presidential nominee of the 1920 presidential election. Roosevelt was the first Democrat in 80 years to simultaneously win an outright majority of the electoral college and popular vote, a feat last accomplished by Franklin Pierce in 1852, as well as the first Democrat in 56 years to win a majority of the popular vote, which was last achieved by Samuel J. Tilden in 1876. Roosevelt was the last sitting governor to be elected president until Bill Clinton in 1992. Hoover became the first incumbent president to lose an election to another term since William Howard Taft in 1912, and the last to do so until Gerald Ford lost 44 years later. The election marked the effective end of the Fourth Party System, which had been dominated by Republicans. It was the first time since 1916 that a Democrat was elected president.
The 1936 United States presidential election was the 38th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1936. In the midst of the Great Depression, incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Governor Alf Landon of Kansas in a landslide. Roosevelt won the highest share of the popular vote (60.8%) and the electoral vote since the largely uncontested 1820 election. The sweeping victory consolidated the New Deal Coalition in control of the Fifth Party System.
The 1944 United States presidential election was the 40th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II, which ended the following year. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey to win an unprecedented fourth term. It was also the fifth presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1940, and 2016.
The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, big city machines, racial and religious minorities, white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and rich Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and survived the splits that created two splinter parties.
The People's Party, also known as the Populist Party or simply the Populists, was an agrarian populist political party in the United States in the late 19th century. The Populist Party emerged in the early 1890s as an important force in the Southern and Western United States, but collapsed after it nominated Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1896 United States presidential election. A rump faction of the party continued to operate into the first decade of the 20th century, but never matched the popularity of the party in the early 1890s.
Third party, or minor party, is a term used in the United States' two-party system for political parties other than the Republican and Democratic parties.
The Liberal Party of New York is a political party in New York. Its platform supports a standard set of socially liberal policies, including abortion rights, increased spending on education, and universal health care.
The American Labor Party (ALP) was a political party in the United States established in 1936 that was active almost exclusively in the state of New York. The organization was founded by labor leaders and former members of the Socialist Party of America who had established themselves as the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). The party was intended to parallel the role of the British Labour Party, serving as an umbrella organization to unite New York social democrats of the SDF with trade unionists who would otherwise support candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.
The 1904 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on November 8, 1904. All contemporary 45 states were part of the 1904 United States presidential election. Voters chose 12 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the president and vice president.