Fed Up: FOX Poll Shows Majority Would Vote 3rd Party

It received very little coverage, even on their own website, but FOX News conducted a poll that had some interesting revelations on the willingness of Americans to vote 3rd party, even if they felt the candidate had little chance to win. The results were buried on page 10 of this PDF file.

The upshot is that 67% of voters said they would vote for a third party independent candidate if they liked them. Even 63% of self-identified Republicans and Democrats said they would do so. I believe the poll greatly under-represented independents who were more likely to vote for a 3rd party candidate, so if anything the real figure could be higher than 67%.

This dissatisfaction with the two-party system also expressed itself in bottom basement approval ratings for both the Republican White House (31%) and Congress. 45% of respondents said that it would be good if a 3rd party candidate or independent won the Presidency in 2008, and another 25% said "it depends on the candidate"!

Clearly, people do not feel like the current system represents them well. There is building frustration at the lack of a political outlet to express this feeling.