Third Parties And Independent Candidates

Though many have tried, none have succeeded in dislodging the hold that Republicans and Democrats (or, in the antebellum period, the Whigs and Democrats) have exerted in Marion County politics. One of the first serious challengers to the two dominant parties was the National Independent Greenback Party. Formed as the Independent party at a state convention in Indianapolis in 1874, the Greenbacks went national in 1875 after winning five seats in the Indiana House of Representatives. The party’s national headquarters was in Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Sun was its official organ. However, the 1876 elections were disastrous for the Greenback party. Their presidential candidate received fewer than 10,000 votes in Indiana, while their candidates for state offices polled fewer than 13,000 votes.

In 1890, Indiana delegates from the Greenback Labor Party (formerly the National Independent Greenback Party), the Grange, the Union Labor Party, and the Farmers Alliance met in Indianapolis and formed the People’s Party. Their candidates polled fewer than 17,000 votes in the 1891 state elections, but their platform appealed to farmers all over the Midwest. At a November 1891 convention in Indianapolis to announce the Farmers Alliance and Farmers Mutual Benefit Association merger, thousands of delegates from a dozen states determined to form a national third party. This national People’s party, commonly called the Populists, did well in the 1892 national elections but won less than 4 percent of the total vote in Indiana and only 581 of 40,926 presidential votes cast in Marion County. Though both parties were originally organized in the city, neither the Greenbacks nor the Populists ever won an office in Indianapolis.

The Prohibitionist Party made its debut in Marion County in 1892. Wilson S. Doan was permanent chairman of the Indianapolis Prohibitionist convention in the early 1900s, and George Hitz was nominated for mayor several times during that period. The party’s platform stressed improved enforcement of prohibition laws. While the party never enjoyed wide support, it continued to nominate candidates for city and county offices into the 1960s.

Another third party that arose in the unrest of the late 19th century and had its best successes in its earliest efforts was the Socialist Party. Building on the public discontent tapped by the Populists, the March 1900, national convention of the Socialist Party, held in Indianapolis, nominated Hoosiers Eugene V. Debs and Job Harriman for president and vice-president. It was the first of five times the Socialists would nominate Debs for the nation’s highest office. In Indianapolis, George Lehnert was the Socialist candidate for mayor three times between 1904 and 1934. Lehnert also ran for the State Senate in 1906 and the Marion County Board of Commissioners in 1913. Shortridge High School and Harvard University graduate Powers Hapgood, who lived on a farm near Southport, was the Socialist candidate for governor in 1932. His wife Mary Donovan Hapgood, several times the Socialist candidate for vice-president of the United States, was the first woman to run for governor of Indiana. None of the Socialist candidates enjoyed any electoral success in Indianapolis or Marion County.

The 1912 election was the one serious challenge in Indianapolis’s history to the two-party system. The Progressive Party mounted the strongest third party ever organized in Marion County. The Progressives won more votes than the Republicans and almost 60 percent of the number of votes garnered by the Democrats. Like most other third parties in Indianapolis, its success was linked to the history and fortunes of a national cause, in this instance the renegade candidacy of former president Theodore Roosevelt. The discontent that produced the earlier Socialist Party was also responsible for several other local third-party efforts over the years, although each continued to be tied to a national campaign.

In 1992 the independent presidential candidacy of H. Ross Perot did well in Marion County because it tapped into a national frustration regarding government and politicians. Despite his withdrawal and later reentry into the race, Perot captured 57,878 Marion County presidential votes or 17.8 percent of the total votes cast. His support organization continued locally in the mid-1990s at the Indianapolis office of United We Stand, America, Perot’s national organization.

*Note: This entry is from the original print edition of the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (1994). We seek an individual with knowledge of this topic to update this entry.