Although there has been a Republican and Democrat in every presidential election since 1856, minor parties have on a few occasions had a significant showing - although the last third party candidate to pull electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968.

H. Ross Perot came the closest in modern history with his 1992 run as an independent. Polls at the time had Perot running neck and neck With Bill Clinton and then-President George H. Bush prior to dropping out of the race for several months. He re-entered and pulled more than 19 million votes that year, but no electoral votes. Political analysts at the time believed the temporary withdrawal from the race damaged Perot’s showing.

For as long as the Democratic and Republican parties have gone head to head, however, the 1912 election was the only time a minor party candidate took both a higher electoral and popular vote than one of the two major parties. Former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt left the Republican Party that year to form the Progressive Party, which beat Republican nominee and sitting President Howard Taft. That split, however, is largely credited with dividing the Republican Party and resulting in the election of the Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.