Reform Party (US)

The party of Ross Perot, founded in 1995, which won nineteen million votes in 1992 as an independent movement.

Overview

Ross Perot ran in 1992 on deficit reduction and opposition to NAFTA, taking 18.9 percent, the best non-major result since 1912. The Reform Party, founded 1995, gave him a vehicle in 1996, when he took eight percent. Jesse Ventura won the Minnesota governorship under its banner in 1998. The party then consumed itself: Perot loyalists fought Pat Buchanan supporters who captured the 2000 nomination, and the organization fractured into state remnants. Its issues, debt, trade, and distrust of Washington, migrated into both major parties. The Reform Party remains the modern case study in insurgent third party rise and collapse.