AHC: Third party victory

[redjirachi]

The challenge is this: with a POD at most 12 years before the election, try to get a third party(there needs to be at least three parties active in this election) that did get at least one electoral vote to end up winning the election. Any nominee is chosen for both the main and third parties, but it must be out of the top 5 of the nominees actually chosen. No killing anyone off either. Here are the elections you can try and get to win. I've excluded the 1912 election because that's been done plenty in alternate history stories. If you make it so it goes to the House of Representatives, explain why they would pick the third party
* 1856-Native American/Know Nothing Party(149 needed to win, 8 OTL)
* 1860-Constitutional Union(the Northern and Southern Democrats are just main parties split) Party(152 needed to win, 39 OTL)
* 1892-Populist Party(223 needed to win, 22 OTL)
* 1924-Progressive Party(266 needed to win, 13 OTL)
* 1948-Dixiecrat(266 needed to win, 39 OTL)
* 1960-Southern Democrat(269 needed to win, 15 OTL)
* 1968-American Independent(270 needed to win, 46 OTL)
* 1972-Libertarian(270 needed to win, 1 OTL)

 

[Just a Rube]

Note that you don't necessarily have to win a majority. You can also prevent anyone from winning a majority of the electoral college and thus throw it to the House and hope that they vote for the 3rd party candidate (there was even an attempt to do this in 2016 with a candidate from Utah having that as his strategy to avoid Trump or Clinton winning, although obviously it failed).

Bell in 1860 might be able to pull this off if the Republicans do slightly worse and he has more effective fusion ticket agreements with Douglas. Given a choice between Breckinridge and Lincoln, the minority supporters would probably prefer Bell, which was more or less his entire strategy.

No one else really has a chance, since you've excluded 1912.

 

[PuffyClouds]

* 1856-Native American/Know Nothing Party(149 needed to win, 8 OTL)

Anti-Masonry had a pretty decent shot by itself. You glom Anti-Masonry on with this earlier, and you might have some momentum.

But I have a heretical view of the 1800s from the board's orthodoxy since I think JQ Adams and Jackson had the potential to be close political allies and running mates.

 

[SiddFinch1]

1944- FDR doesn't drop Wallace in favor of Truman.
FDR dies on schedule. Wallace doesn't drop the bomb and the war continues past 45 into 46 or later with a large scale invasion of Japan costing thousands of lives.

1948 after a bitter fight, Wallace is renominated as the Democratic nominee leading to a mass exodus of moderates and conservatives to form a more subtle, moderate, version of the Dixicrat party albeit with a different name - lets say Moderates for lack of a better name- (essentially the Democratic party morphs into the Progressive party, Republicans into an isolationist conservative and the "Dixicrats" become the more mainstream Moderate party). Yeah I know the dixicrats don't belong in a moderate party but the Moderates are essentially the OTL Democratic party which had been their home and became it again until the 60s.

Perhaps Taft beats Dewey leading the more eastern establishment republicans into the new Moderate/center party. The nominee is not Strom but someone moderate- perhaps Truman or Dewey?- who becomes President defeating Wallace and the rump Democratic party and the Taft led Republicans.