Largest of the Five Third Parties America currently has five nationally organized third parties: Reform, Libertarian, Green, Constitution (American Taxpayers), and Natural Law. Each of these five parties has received 100,000 votes for at least one of its candidates over the past 20 years. No other third party currently existing in America has done this. It is difficult to say which of the five is the most important and strongest. The Reform Party can claim dominance in a few recent elections. In the 1996 presidential campaign, Ross Perot spent more money and received more votes (8.39%) than all other third-party candidates combined. The vote totals were as follows: Reform (Ross Perot) 8,085,403, Green (Ralph Nader) 685,128, Libertarian (Harry Browne) 485,798, American Taxpayers (Howard Phillips) 182,820 and Natural Law (John Hagelin) 113,671 The Reform Party is the only third party to currently have an elected governor (Jesse Ventura in Minnesota). In 1998, it became the first third party since 1914 to receive more than a million votes for all of its gubernatorial candidates. (More than half of those votes were for Jesse Ventura.) The Libertarian Party, founded in 1971, is the oldest of five nationally organized third parties. The American Taxpayers Party was formed in 1990, Natural Law in 1992, and Reform in 1995. The Greens began organizing nationally in 1984 with the formation of the Green Committees of Correspondence. This organization was replaced by the Green Party of the United States in 1991, but it never had the support of many state green parties. A new organization, the Association of State Green Parties, formed in 1996, has the support of 23 state parties and is currently attempting to form a national party. There have been many different third parties in American history, but most disappeared relatively quickly. The Libertarian Party is one of six third parties in U.S. history to have existed for 25 years. If history is to be believed, most of today's third parties probably won't be around in 10 or 20 years. One factor that increases a third's chances of long-term survival is not being overly dependent on any one individual. The Libertarian Party is the only one of the five parties to have fielded more than one person for president, and it has fielded a different candidate in each of the last 7 presidential elections..