Can I play too? A look at minor party entrance and success in U.S. gubernatorial elections

Abstract

New minor political parties and their candidates face many challenges. Most of challenges have been examined on the national level in the previous literature. By examining ballot access laws and campaign finance regulations in all 50 U.S. states, this thesis argues that differences in the restriction to ballot access and campaign finance laws account for some of the variation in the number of new minor party candidates who run for governor in each state as well as the percentage of the vote they receive. Using a coding for ballot access laws and campaign finance stringency, as well as several control variables, this thesis finds that both ballot access laws and campaign finance regulations play a role in determining the number of new minor political party candidates who appear on the ballot for governor across the states. At the same time, however, the analysis finds no support that either variable has any impact on the percentage of the vote cast for all new minor party candidates.