Jill Stein, Chase Oliver, RFK, Jr. | 3rd party candidates appear on DMV ballots

WASHINGTON — While the 2024 race may have been mainly a battle between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, there were other candidates on your ballot on Election Day who made an impression.

While the third-party vote fell from previous elections, nearly 2 million votes were cast around the United States in the presidential election outside of the Democratic and Republican parties. 

A third-party candidate has not won a U.S. state in a presidential election since 1968, when Gov. George Wallace, a segregationist, won his home state of Alabama, as well as Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, and 13.5% of the popular vote as a candidate for the American Independent Party. 

And a political party that was neither Democratic nor Republican has not won the presidency since 1864, when Republican President Abraham Lincoln and his running mate Democrat Andrew Johnson, dropped their party labels to form the National Union Party during the U.S. Civil War.

Here is a list of the third-party candidates in the DMV and how they performed, based on vote totals from Wednesday. 

Jill Stein / Butch Ware - Green Party:

Maryland: 1.1% - 26,028 

Virginia: 0.7% - 32,216

National: 0.4% - 640,115

Jill Stein has been on the ballot during three presidential cycles as a Green Party Candidate: 2012, 2016 and 2024. In 2016, the Green Party candidate came in fourth place nationally with 1.5 million votes. Stein received a combined 67,841 votes across D.C., Maryland and Virginia. 

Stein holds the record for most votes cast for a Jewish presidential candidate in any United States election. 

The Green Party has left-wing policies, with Stein supporting universal healthcare, free public education and environmental regulations. 

The 74-year-old a physician from Massachusetts, has also mounted unsuccessful campaigns for Massachusetts governor, in 2002 and 2010. Stein's only previous political experience was serving as a council member in Lexington, Ma. from 2005 to 2010. 

Stein's name is on the ballot, along with her running mate University of Michigan history professor Butch Ware, in 37 states, including Virginia and Maryland. Stein and Ware were not on the ballot in D.C. for the 2024 election. 

On Tuesday, Stein doubled The Green Party's share of Maryland voters from the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. But fell short of her vote totals there in 2016 by about 3,000 votes. 

"Once again the two-party system has delivered a disastrous result for the American people," Stein said on Wednesday. "Now we must continue the uprising for people-powered politics and demand the world we deserve - which will never be delivered by the twin parties of war and Wall Street."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / Nicole Shanahan - Independent

D.C.: 0.8% - 2,349 votes

Maryland: 1% - 24,274 

National: 0.4% - 615,681

RFK Jr. suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Republican candidate Former President Donald Trump. By then, Kennedy's campaign had already gained access to 40 U.S. States by the time he dropped out. Kennedy petitioned to remove his name from the ballot in some of these states and was successful in Virginia among 18 others. However, by election day, Kennedy's name still was on the ballot in Maryland and Washington, D.C., as well as 30 other states.

Launching his candidacy as an alternative to President Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary, Kennedy eventually dropped out and launched an Independent campaign in October 2023. 

RFK Jr. has been critical of vaccines, having cast out conspiracy theories and skepticism about nearly every available vaccine through his nonprofit the Children's Health Defense, including flu and polio shots. He has criticized the United States' response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in his 2021 book "The Real Anthony Fauci."

Early Wednesday morning Trump mentioned Bobby Kennedy Jr. in his victory speech, after Trump won the presidential election against Democratic candidate Vice President Harris. 

"He's going to make America healthy again. And now he's a great guy and he really means it," Trump said on Wednesday. "He wants to do some things, and we're gonna let him go to it." 

An environmental lawyer, Kennedy has also spoken out against pesticides, mercury poisoning and pollution, founding the group the Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999. 

Before RFK Jr. dropped out, he managed to gain some ground in polling, putting out a campaign video that mimicked his uncle John F. Kennedy's TV commercial jingle during Super Bowl LVIII. Kennedy Jr. was even granted Secret Service protection by President Biden in July, after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is perhaps best known for being a member of the Democratic Kennedy political dynasty. His uncle was the 35th President of The United States, John F. Kennedy. And his father, Robert. F. Kennedy Sr. was JFK's attorney general as well as a U.S. Senator from New York and a presidential candidate in the 1968 Democratic Presidential Primaries. 

Tragically, Robert Kennedy Sr.'s candidacy for president ended when he was shot and killed at a campaign stop in Los Angeles in 1968. RFK Jr. was 14 when his father was killed. The younger Robert Kennedy was also 9 years old when J.F.K. was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.  

Chase Oliver / Mike ter Maat - Libertarian Party 

Maryland: 0.5% - 12,777 votes

Virginia: 0.4% - 18,804

National: 0.4% - 574,724

The Libertarian Party typically rallies for limited government involvement in people's lives, a smaller military, looser immigration policies and privatized health care. Chase Oliver, who is openly gay, supports same-sex marriage, limited restrictions on guns and reforms to police funding. 

A 39-year-old Atlanta resident, Oliver has been a fixture in Georgia elections, running unsuccessful campaigns as a Libertarian for both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House.   

In 2022, Oliver's candidacy took a contentious senate election into the runoffs. In that election Oliver got 2% of the vote in Georgia, preventing Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock or his Republican opponent former NFL player Herschel Walker from receiving a majority of the vote. Sen. Warnock won the December runoff election. 

Oliver's running mate, Mike ter Maat is a retired Florida police officer, who now lives in Kinsale, Va., in Westmoreland County. Oliver and Ter Maat, were on the ballot in 47 states, including Virginia and Maryland. D.C. voters who wished to vote for Oliver and Ter Maat had the option to write them in, as official registered write-ins. 

The Libertarian Party suffered major losses in both Maryland and Virginia among their small share of the vote in the 2024 race. On Election Day, Oliver's Libertarian Party received half as many votes in Maryland as 2020, and a third as many as Virginia in 2020. 

In 2020, the Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen got 1.2% of the vote nationally, with 1.9 million votes. The Libertarian Party got just under 100,000 votes across D.C., Maryland and Virginia in 2020. 

Chase Oliver told the Libertarian publication Reason that running for president was 'the honor of a lifetime," on Wednesday. 

"Even with any headwinds that I faced, I know that I've done everything I can to spread the message of liberty in a positive way," Oliver said. 

Cornel West / Melina Abdullah - Independent

Virginia: 0.2% - 8,515 votes

Cornel West, 71, is a professor and philosopher, who has taught at Ivy League schools like Princeton, Columbia and Harvard. In 2016 and 2020, West supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the senator's run for Democratic nomination, frequently speaking out for Sanders on cable news outlets. 

After Sanders lost the Democratic nomination to Joe Biden in 2020, West supported Jill Stein's Green Party in that election. 

West has also lent his philosophical voice to the metaphysical Hollywood series The Matrix, appearing in two of the film's sequels. 

West's running-mate Melina Abdullah teaches Pan-African Studies at Cal State, Los Angeles. Abdullah also is a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter chapter in Los Angeles. 

West and Abdullah are on the ballot in 15 states, including Virginia. He is not on the ballot in Washington, D.C., and is a registered write-in in Maryland.  

Other candidates: 

There were a number of other third-party candidates, including the Party for Socialism and Liberation party candidate, Claudia De la Cruz, who was on the ballot in Virginia and received 7,893 votes and 0.2% in the commonwealth. 

The best third-party performances in the DMV since the U.S. Civil War are as follows: 

D.C.: John Anderson, Independent (1980 U.S. Presidential Election) - 9.3%

Maryland: Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive (1912) - 24.9%

Virginia: George Wallace, American Independent (1968) - 23.6%