when was the last election that a 3rd party candidate won a significant number of states
List of third party performances in United States elections In the 58 presidential elections since 1788, third party or independent candidates have won at least 5.0% of the vote or garnered electoral votes 12 times (21%); this does not count George Washington, who was elected as an independent in 1788â€“1789 and 1792, but who largely supported Federalist policies and was supported by Federalists. Occasionally, a third party becomes one of the two major parties through a presidential election (the last time it happened was in 1856, when the Republicans supplanted the Whigs, who had withered and endorsed the ticket of the American Party): such an election is called a realigning election, as it causes a realignment in the party system; according to scholars, there have been six party systems so far. Only once one of the two major parties came third in an election, but that did not cause a realignment (in 1912 the Progressive Party surpassed the Republicans, but the party quickly disappeared and the Republicans re-gained their major party status). The last third party candidate to win one or more states was George Wallace of the American Independent Party in 1968, while the most recent third party candidate to win more than 5.0% of the vote was Ross Perot, who ran as an independent and as the standard-bearer of the Reform Party in 1992 and 1996, respectively.
United States presidential election in Virginia, 2016 The Democratic Party candidate, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of New York, carried Virginia with a 49.7% plurality in the popular vote against businessman Donald Trump of New York, who carried 44.4%, a victory margin of 5.3%. Clinton seemed to benefit from having Tim Kaine on the ticket. Whereas the national popular vote swung 1.9% Republican from the previous election, Virginia swung 1.37% Democratic.[1] [2] This was also the first time since 1944 where Virginia was more Democratic than the national average.