Chapter Twenty
Election Day. Browne Loses.
Now the show reaches the end of the road. On November 7, 2000, the American people, or at least some of them, cast their votes. In a few states, the vote total was close. The final popular vote outcome was:
| Al Gore | 51,003,238 | |
| George Bush | 50,459,624 | |
| Ralph Nader | 2,882,985 | |
| Pat Buchanan | 449,120 | |
| Harry Browne | 384,440 | (0.36%) |
| Other | 232,922 |
It would be a month before George Bush or Al Gore found out which of them had won the election.
What was certain was that Harry Browne lost, even before thousands of Browne votes were apparently stolen by Florida Democrats. Browne got substantially fewer votes in 2000 than he did in 1996. In a few states, such as Georgia, there were great advances. In other states, notably Pennsylvania, there were massive losses. It should not surprise readers that as soon as the results were known Libertarian spin merchants began deploying explanations for Browne’s catastrophic failure. Many of the explanations were excuses for Browne that do not hold up to close examination.
Excuse #1: 2000 was a bad year for third parties in general.
The total vote for Third Party candidates went down from 1996 to 2000. However, most people vote for a specific third party for a specific reason, not for the generic third party candidate regardless of label. To say that third parties as a group did badly, one must show that at least most third parties did worse in 2000 than in 1996. It may be true that the largest third party did worse in 2000 than in 1996, but that’s a specific change, not a generic outcome. Furthermore, third parties change their labels. Most voters who support third parties are up to following these changes. This, the Party of Perot did worse in 1996 than in 1992, but Perot’s party label changed between the two elections. In tracking how Perot did, we follow the substance of the organization, not the party’s current label.
Look at the numbers. To compare 1996 and 2000, you have to make rational comparisons. People vote for third parties for what they are, not what they are called at the moment. Thus, Ross Perot ran in 1992 and 1996, once as a self-nominated independent and once as the Reform party candidate. Comparing Perot’s 1992 and 1996 vote totals is appropriate, because Ross was Ross, even though the logo was a trifle different. Perot did much worse in 1996 than he did in 1992. The “Reform Party” did better in 1996 than in 2000. The latter comparison is meaningless, because in 1996 people voted for Perot, not for the Reform Party label. Perot did not run in 2000. The disappearance of Perot from the electoral map dropped the total third party vote but refers only to how the “Party of Perot” did.
So what are the comparisons? The Green Party ran Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000. The Green Party vote total went from 0.5% (barely beating Harry Browne in 1996) to several percent in 2000. The United States has a small collection of parties of the Christian right. In 1996, they gathered as the Constitution Party. The Party was created as the perfect vehicle for Pat Buchanan, if he chose to bolt from the Republicans. Buchanan remained a loyal Republican. The Constitution Party ran Howard Philips, and in 1996 got almost 0.2% of the vote. In 2000, the Constitution Party ran Howard Philips again. The parties of the Christian right also gained a second vehicle, because in 2000 Christian rightist Buchanan did bolt from the Republicans and ran as a third party candidate under the banner “Reform Party”. Was this the same as Perot’s Reform party? One was the legal inheritor of the other to the tune of millions of dollars, but the 1996 and 2000 Reform Parties appealed to unrelated audiences. The parties of the Christian Right between them got close to 0.6% of the vote, roughly three times their 1996 total. Indeed, Buchanan beat Browne.
Only Harry Browne and Natural Law Party candidate John Hagelin did worse in 2000 than in 1996. According to press reports, the Natural Law Party was formally dissolved after its 2000 defeats. Some Third Parties did better in 1996 than in 2000, and some did not. The biggest did not, but there is certainly no trend here.
When Harty Browne ran in 1996 he also ran in a highly competitive field of alternative candidated which included Ross Perot and Ralph Nader, both of whom were better funded and higher name recognition and received more mdeia coverage than Browne (especially Perot), as well as Howard Plillips of the US Taxpayers Party (which changed its name to the Constitution Party in 1998) and John Hegelin of the Natural Law Party, both of whom had ballot access in a lot of states.
If Browne had run against weaker fields of alternatice candidate competition as Gary Johnson ran against in 2012 and in 2016, and as Jo Jorgensen ran against jn 2020, I think it is realistic that he would have broken 1 million votes each time.
As it was Browne’s campaigns brought in a lit of new members to the party and it helped to propel LNC dues paying membership numbers to the highest ever in terms of number of dues paying members and fundraising, and Browne did this while espousing a hardcore libertarian message without sounding cringey.
Just to add some comparison to how candidates / parties did between the two elections, I took the candidate’s vote totals just from the states where they were on the ballot (ignoring write-in votes) and used as the denominator the population of those states in each year. That was an attempt to remove ballot access comparison problems.
1996 first, 2000 second
Clinton – Gore (Democrat)
17.87% -> 18.07%
Dole – Bush Jr (Republican)
14.78% -> 17.88%
Perot – Buchanan (Reform)
3.05% -> 0.16%
Nader – Nader (Green)
0.60% -> 1.09%
Browne – Browne (Libertarian)
0.18% -> 0.14%
Phillips – Phillips (US Taxpayers/Constitution)
0.09% -> 0.05%
Hagelin – Hagelin (Natural Law)
0.05% -> 0.04%
Moore – Moore (Worker’s World)
0.04% -> 0.02%
Hollis – McReynolds (Socialist)
0.03% -> 0.01%
Harris – Harris (Socialist Workers)
0.01% -> 0.01%
Throw out Perot if you want but, given the above attempt to remove ballot access considerations from one election to the next, it seems that only Nader and the Green party improved their position between 1996 and 2000.
There actually is a group of voters who seems to vote for any third party candidate without regard to any positions that third party might have. LP candidates seem to lose between 1/4 and 1/3 of their vote percentage when another third party or independent candidate is on the ballot, 40% – 45% if there are two alternatives, 55% if there are 3 alternative minor party or independent candidates, and 60% with 4 other minor party options, although data gets very limited with that many minor party alternative candidates.
And that is generally true even going from one left wing alternative candidate to two left wing alternative candidates. The LP tends to get a lower vote percentage with two left wing minor parties in opposition than just one, which doesn’t make sense unless there is a randomly distributed vote. It is also true for one right wing alternative party vs two right wing alternative parties.
I think the response from the public might be better if the LP made an effort to get media releases out, had people frequently write letters to the editor, had booths at more public events, got people to walk around with t-shirts with slogans on the back, if the states had up to date websites and the national website was up to date as well. This does not take a lot of money and in fact with computers, some volunteer help, and email it is inexpensive. Unfortunately, the LP has made a decision not to do such things.
Thanks again for this series. How did Florida Democrats steal votes from Browne?
Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan had a lot more name recognition and campaign money than did Harry Browne, and both also received more media coverage than he did. Also, the Constitution Party and the Natural Law Party had ballot access in a lot of states. It was a highly competitive field of minor party and independent candidates, a lot more so than in 2012, 2016 and 2020.