| That Guy said: America has tried to have more than 2 major parties, but every time a serious 3rd party contender comes along, it splits the vote of one of the major parties, leading to the victory of the other one. For example, Ross Perot split the Republican vote, helping Bill Clinton win the election. |
From the research I have done on the 92 presidential election, that does not seem to be the case. I addressed this in another thread before the 08 election transpired: If one looks at the exit polling from the 92 election, one will find that had Perot not been on the ballot, 38% of his voters said they would have voted for Clinton and 38% said they would have voted for Bush. The same thing happened along ideological lines. Perot received an equal number of conservatives and liberal votes (18%) and received 21% of the moderate vote. Reagan was the last Republican to win the moderate vote as it almost always breaks Democrat. There are factors that hurt Bush (30-49 age group and gender) and some that hurt Clinton (moderate vote, 18-29 age group and union households). Now, exit polling is imperfect, but it is the best data available for the preferences of Perot supporters.
I think the 1912 election is a prime example of what you described. It is indubitably apparent that Roosevelt and the Progressives split the Republican vote.
