In addition to everything else that's been said in this thread, let me point this out:
In at least some states (my own North Carolina, for example) it's VERY difficult to get a new political party recognized by the State, and certified as eligible to put candidates on the ballot. Now, to be fair, NC has some of the worst ballot access laws in the country, but the point is that it's not necessarily easy to organize a party, get candidates on the ballot, etc.
Here in NC, you have to gather enough petition signatures to equal, IIRC, 10% of the total votes cast in the last Presidential election, in order to certify a new party. That winds up being > 100,000 signatures, and you just can't collect that many signatures using only volunteers, which means you need to hire paid petitioners. Last I heard, it cost about a dollar per signature. Oh, and you actually need about 25% more signatures than the nominal requirement, because a bunch will get thrown out by the Board of Elections for one reason or another (not from NC, no birthdate listed, etc.)
You're basically talking about a 4 year long effort and over $100,000.00 to get on the ballot here. And here's the rub: If your party's candidate for President or Governor doesn't garner at least 2% of the vote, you get bumped back off the ballot and have to repeat the whole process again. And so on and so on and so on... Now, 2% isn't that bad, but they only just lowered it to 2% from, IIRC, 10%, a few years ago.
For context: Since the modern (current) election laws went into place, only one party in NC has ever gotten ballot access outside of the Democrats and Republicans, and that was the Libertarian Party. And until they lowered the retention threshold to 2%, we had to go through that "petion, petition, petition every 4 years" cycle essentially constantly, which meant that we had very little money (or energy) to dedicate to supporting candidates, advertising, etc. It was a nonstop war just to retain ballot access.
Also, for context, no 3rd party candidate in NC history has gained 10% or more in race for President or Governor. We have managed to hit the 2% threshold the last two election cycles though, which is nice, since it frees up time and energy and money to do other things besides petitioning.
Anyway, the point of all that is just to show that it takes a lot of effort, time, energy and money to organize a political party and get on the ballot (at least here. Each state is different). And that's just getting on the ballot. Actually winning elections is even harder.
I have never quite understood the weird limbo the "party system" seems to be in. On one hand, how they run themselves is not law, they just do it according to a bunch of internal rules each agreed on. There certainly isn't anything in the constitution about them either. On the other hand you have state laws like North Carolina's that legally recognizes and enforces the concept of a "party".
No doubt. It gets worse though... Say you don't want to affiliate with a party, and you just want to run as an "independent" or "unaffiliated" candidate: You still have to go through an onerous process of paperwork, fees, petitions, etc. to get on the ballot. Even worse, you have to petition to be recognized as a write in candidate!!
Think about that for a minute... You have to be recognized by the State, to be a write-in candidate. Is there a bigger oxymoron in existence than "certified write-in candidate"? But if you don't do it, no votes cast for you will be counted. Even if you seemingly earned what would be a landslide victory, it wouldn't count, because they totally disregard any write-in votes that aren't certified ahead of time.
And people think our system of government isn't rigged and corrupt... sheesh.
In at least some states (my own North Carolina, for example) it's VERY difficult to get a new political party recognized by the State, and certified as eligible to put candidates on the ballot. Now, to be fair, NC has some of the worst ballot access laws in the country, but the point is that it's not necessarily easy to organize a party, get candidates on the ballot, etc.
Here in NC, you have to gather enough petition signatures to equal, IIRC, 10% of the total votes cast in the last Presidential election, in order to certify a new party. That winds up being > 100,000 signatures, and you just can't collect that many signatures using only volunteers, which means you need to hire paid petitioners. Last I heard, it cost about a dollar per signature. Oh, and you actually need about 25% more signatures than the nominal requirement, because a bunch will get thrown out by the Board of Elections for one reason or another (not from NC, no birthdate listed, etc.)
You're basically talking about a 4 year long effort and over $100,000.00 to get on the ballot here. And here's the rub: If your party's candidate for President or Governor doesn't garner at least 2% of the vote, you get bumped back off the ballot and have to repeat the whole process again. And so on and so on and so on... Now, 2% isn't that bad, but they only just lowered it to 2% from, IIRC, 10%, a few years ago.
For context: Since the modern (current) election laws went into place, only one party in NC has ever gotten ballot access outside of the Democrats and Republicans, and that was the Libertarian Party. And until they lowered the retention threshold to 2%, we had to go through that "petion, petition, petition every 4 years" cycle essentially constantly, which meant that we had very little money (or energy) to dedicate to supporting candidates, advertising, etc. It was a nonstop war just to retain ballot access.
Also, for context, no 3rd party candidate in NC history has gained 10% or more in race for President or Governor. We have managed to hit the 2% threshold the last two election cycles though, which is nice, since it frees up time and energy and money to do other things besides petitioning.
Anyway, the point of all that is just to show that it takes a lot of effort, time, energy and money to organize a political party and get on the ballot (at least here. Each state is different). And that's just getting on the ballot. Actually winning elections is even harder.