For a good part of the 2024 election cycle, one of the major continuing narratives was the loathing Americans had for the two major political parties. In 2023 and the first half of 2024, polls consistently showed voters longing for more options than the Democratic and Republican parties were providing. Some of that disdain may have been generated by the particular options on offer: two chronically unpopular old men named Biden and Trump. But that’s all the more reason it looked for a while like there could be a bumper crop of non-major party presidential candidates.
There was the No Labels movement, which for a while was making elaborate claims of viability (or at least significant visibility) for a bipartisan ticket in states across the country. There was an independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign that at one point was polling at around 20 percent in a number of states. Progressive academic and activist Cornel West launched his own indie candidacy. And the well-established Libertarian and Green parties were planning potentially formidable........