Dismissing the Green Party because it hasn’t won federal office ignores the fact that many significant movements started small and faced long odds before making a real impact.

The current system is indeed stacked against third parties, but that doesn’t mean we should give up advocating for change; it means we need to push even harder for reforms like ranked-choice voting and the national popular vote compact. If everyone resigned themselves to the status quo, progress would never happen—change starts with those willing to challenge the system, even when the odds seem impossible.

Mocking third-party efforts as futile only serves to reinforce a broken system, rather than recognizing the value of persistence and principled action in shaping a better future.

Green Party candidates have occasionally garnered significant attention and votes, but they have not been successful in winning federal office due to the challenges third parties face in the U.S. political system, including limited visibility, funding, and the dominance of the two major parties.

They have had some local successes in other parts of the country, such as winning seats in local government or state legislatures. Californians have elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials include Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18) and Maine (17). Maine has the highest per capita number of Green elected officials in the country and the largest Green registration percentage with more than 29,273 Greens comprising 2.95% of the electorate as of November 2006.[68] Madison, Wisconsin is the city with the most Green elected officials (8), followed by Portland, Maine (7).