Many voters are weary about a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. Third parties hope they can fill the gap

The 2024 presidential election is drawing an unusually robust field of independent, third party and long shot candidates hoping to capitalize on Americans’ ambivalence and frustration over a likely rematch between Democrat Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump.

Those looking to blaze a new path to the White House range from members of Congress to a prominent academic and a scion of one of the county’s most prominent political families.

Their odds are exceedingly long. 

George Washington was the only person to win the presidency without a party affiliation. An incumbent hasn’t lost his party’s presidential nomination since Democrats passed over Franklin Pierce in 1856. Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 marked the last time someone from a new party — in his case, the Republican Party — won the White House. 

But with the United States deeply divided and somewhat anxious about the prospect of another Biden-Trump campaign, third party candidates insist voters are restless enough to defy history. 

“This is really fertile ground now for independent politics,” Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee in 2012 and 2016, said in an interview. “There’s so much hunger for a principled politics, a politics of integrity, and for options outside of the two zombie candidates that are being forced down our throats, and the two zombie political parties.”

Little-known candidates with no chance of victory run every year and sometimes piece together enough votes to make a difference in close races, even if they don’t win. But the activity this fall has been notable.

Stein, a physician and environmental activist, announced this month that she will make her third bid for the presidency in 2024, reversing course from her earlier decision to remain on the sidelines next year and support Cornel West, a scholar and progressive activist with a loyal following on the left. West announced last month that he no longer was running under the Green Party banner, but as an independent. 

Stein said she has felt dissatisfaction with the major parties growing steadily since her first presidential campaign and “it’s off the charts now.” 

Seventy-five percent of Americans think Biden should not run for president again, and 69% think Trump should not, according to an August poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Both men are underwater with their approval ratings, meaning more Americans view them unfavorably than favorably. 

Americans think Biden, 81, is too old and they are divided about criminal chargesagainst Trump, 77, who has been indicted four times and is facing trial next year. 

Nearly 80% said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. About half of Americans approved of the Justice Department indicting Trump over his efforts to remain in office after losing the 2020 election to Biden.