Alternative Presidential Hopefuls’ Persisting in the Race

When voters head to the polls in Texas this November, there is a small chance they will find “Literally Anybody Else” listed on the ballot underneath President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Funny as they may be to some, the option would not be a fluke. In fact, North Texas man Dustin Ebey legally changed his name earlier this year to Literally Anybody Else so people have an eye-catching alternative.

“I really want there to be an outlet for folks like me who are just so fed up with this constant power grab between two parties that has no benefit for the common person,” Else said, according to local ABC affiliate WFAA.

Else, a 7th grade math teacher and Army veteran, said the challenge is a “hard” but not “not impossible” one. He needs to get more than 113,000 signatures from non-primary voters by May 13. His other option is to be a write-in candidate.

“This isn’t about me, ‘Literally Anybody Else,’ more so as it is an idea. We can do better out of 300 million people for president,” he said. Else added he would “love” to get on the debate stage and bring the “reality” that Biden and Trump “are not enough.”

Although Biden and Trump have virtually locked up the nomination of their respective parties, polling shows most Americans are dissatisfied with their choices for president and grow tired of the two-party system.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent after a break with the Democratic Party, has repeatedly notched double-digit support in 2024 surveys. His main challenge at the moment is getting on the ballot in all 50 states.

While other candidates have suspended their campaigns, including former South Carolina Governor and ex-U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), there remain in the mix some competitors who seek to disrupt the state of play.

One such person is Jason Palmer, who scored an upset victory last month in American Samoa’s Democratic nominating contest, handing Biden his first defeat in the 2024 election cycle and collecting a few delegates.

Palmer, a venture capitalist from Maryland, acknowledges on his website that he is a “… longshot candidate with very little chance of winning” and stresses that his campaign is “more focused on ideas, solutions and changing the conversation.”

He wants “conscious capitalism” — which Palmer told C-SPAN involves “people who create business for good and invest in businesses for basically socially-improving purposes — a “people first talent economy,” and “modernizing government.”

Yet another person who is still running for the White House as a Democrat is self-help author Marianne Williamson. She suspended her campaign in early February only to resurrect it a few weeks later after winning 3% in the Michigan primary.

Williamson previously sought the presidency in the 2020 election. Upon “unsuspending” her campaign this time around, Williams said people “cannot sit idly by while the D.C. political class sleepwalks this country into disaster.”

A “winning” platform, according to Williamson, includes “Medicare for All,” tuition-free college, subsidized childcare, “repudiating America’s forever war machine,” a “guaranteed living wage,” and ending the “War on Drugs.”

Liberal activist Cornel West is also running for president. West made waves in October when he dropped his Green Party bid to campaign as an independent. Like some of the others, he posted to X about how people are “hungry” for a change.

“They want good policies over partisan politics. We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people,” West said, adding he was running as an independent to “end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!”

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As much as Americans do seem to lack enthusiasm about a 2020 rematch between Biden and Trump, polls show them in a close race anyway. Moreover, insurgent-organized efforts to shatter the paradigm in the White House contest have dragged their feet this election cycle.

No Labels, which had touted the idea of a “Unity Ticket,” announced on Thursday that it would be ending a search after failing to find viable candidates.

Though the group said “the responsible course of action” was to stand down, it noted, “Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run, and hungrier for unifying national leadership, than ever before.”

For voters who have become disenchanted with the state of politics, there is someone they can reliably turn to — for kicks, if not a competitor who actually has a shot of winning. That person is Vermin Supreme, the perennial candidate known for wearing a boot on his head.

“Vermin Supreme will take away your guns and give you better ones. These better guns will shoot marshmallows, but they will still be lethal,” he said at a New Hampshire forum in December. Vermin Supreme ended up getting 0.7% in the state’s Democratic primary in January.

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