HTY/POL 301 Career Prep and HTY 339: Historiographical Essays and HTY 499/POL 499 Senior Seminar: Case Studies of Third Parties in Amer. Pol. History and Comp. to Current Third Party Candidates

"Some of the most interesting American third-party campaigns – like those of Socialist Eugene Debs and the most successful third-party candidate in U.S. history, former president Theodore Roosevelt – predate the polling era. After the advent of polling in the 1930s, the 1948 election was the first to include third-party candidates that drew significant support. A reborn Progressive Party nominated former FDR vice-president and cabinet member Henry Wallace, and Strom Thurmond headed the States’ Rights Democratic Party, formed in opposition to President Harry Truman’s growing support of civil rights. The last national Gallup poll in October had Wallace at 3% and Thurmond at 2%, and they received 2.37% and 2.41% of the vote respectively—a close match, even in a year infamous for forecasting failures when pollsters stopped field work too soon to catch last-minute shifts. Third party support did have regional influence. Thurmond received 39 electoral votes by carrying four Southern states, a sign of the regional nature of his appeal. This pattern of low overall third-party voting with decent regional showings would be repeated two decades later."