In New York, the state’s Working Families Party is embroiled in a fight to maintain its ballot line, a struggle that provides insight into the squeeze smaller parties have been put under this year to maintain relevance and exert influence despite the fact that an increasing number of Americans say they would support another political party.

In New York, minor parties must maintain 2% support in elections in order to keep their ballot line. This provision was passed as part of a package that also provided public financing for campaigns. In practical terms, this means the Working Families Party needs to convince 130,000 voters to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, on the Working Families Party line, Row D, instead of under the Democratic Party line.

The Working Families Party is what political scientists would call a “fusion party,” a third party that normally nominates the same candidate as a major party and essentially acts like an interest group within that larger party. The Working Families Party in New York almost always nominates the same candidates as the Democrats. Likewise, the state’s Conservative Party normally nominates the same candidate as the Republicans.

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Fusion parties stand in contrast to a more traditional third party, like the Green Party or the Libertarian Party, which normally nominate their own candidates. This year the Green Party nominated Jill Stein and the Libertarians nominated activist Chase Oliver. While third-party nominees are ostensibly in the race to win, they’ve historically had the biggest impact when they are able to present a real threat of acting as a spoiler to major parties.

Bernard Tamas, a political scientist at Valdosta State University and the author of “The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties,” told Salon that this strategy is known as the “sting like a bee” strategy.

“The idea is that the purpose of a third party is to pick an issue or some set of issues that people feel is being ignored and to attack one or both of the major parties on this,” Tamas said. “As much as they like to say ‘we’re not spoilers’ the strategy is threatening to spoil them. If they’re successful then the major parties will co-opt whatever issue the third party was campaigning on.”

A classic example of this is the Progressive Party or the Bull Moose Party of the early 20th century. Tamas said that the party........

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