When two's a race and three's a crowd.

Winning When There's One Candidate Too Many

The year of the woman? To be sure, but 1992 was also the year of the third party.

H. Ross Perot and his 19 million votes for president is only the most visible symbol of the growth of the third party in American politics. In fact, at every level of politics, third-party candidates had a bigger impact on the '92 election than ever before.

With the U.S. and world economies struggling through a post-Cold War realignment, and ideological and single-interest politics on the rise, third-party candidates are developing momentum at all political levels.

In the 1990s, multicandidate races will become more and more routine, and the once-common 50 percent majority victory may become a vanishing relic of a previous political era.

This all means that Democratic and Republican campaign professionals can no longer afford to ignore third-party opposition in congressional and legislative races.

When it comes to voter and opposition research, overall message development, voter contact, and targeting, a strategy for addressing a third-party candidate (or even a fourth-party candidate) is essential.

Just ask Democrat Doug Bosco, a four-term incumbent U.S. representative from northern California's 1st CD who lost by one point to Republican Frank Riggs in 1990.

In that election, Peace and Freedom candidate Darlene Commingore took 15 percent of the vote directly from Bosco's core support base.

In contrast, Democratic Dan Hamburg retook the seat from Riggs this year, in large part because Hamburg targeted Independents and third-party registrants and was able to recapture the "change" voters who defected to the third party last time. Minor-party candidates in California's 1st CD earned only 7 percent of the vote in 1992.

Indeed, in California, a bellwether state when it comes to emerging political trends, this cycle's third-party congressional candidates earned more votes -- and more congressional races were won with fewer than 50 percent of the vote -- than at any time since the '30s, another period of economic upheaval.

We learned to pay close attention to the approval ratings of third-party candidates at every phase of the election process. This was especially true when the third-party candidate was a woman and the two mainstream candidates were men, or when the Democrat or Republican suffered through a bruising, negative primary campaign.

Take another example. In California's 50th CD, Democrat Bob Filner, a feisty, antiestablishment San Diego City councilman, earned the nomination only after a bitterly fought Democratic primary. Filner was matched up in the general election against Republican Tony Valencia, Libertarian Barbara Hutchinson, and Peace and Freedom candidate Roger Batchelder.

Our August baseline survey turned up clear signs of danger: weak support for Filner among Democrats who voted for his opponent in the primary; and strong anti-incumbency sentiment coupled with a perception that Filner was the incumbent.

As a result, the survey suggested that independent candidates Hutchinson and Batchelder could draw as much as 20 percent of the vote. Based on the polling data, we decided to deal immediately with Hutchinson, who was by far the most troubling opponent.

The campaign commenced research on Hutchinson, discovering, among other intriguing facts, that she had been convicted of mail fraud. Filner's mail consultant, Roger Lee & Carol Beddo Inc., began to mention Hutchinson in contrast mail, targeting women and Independent voters in particular. The Campaign Group, Filner's media consultant, also developed a comparison TV spot that mentioned Hutchinson's felony conviction.

Two weeks before election day, in a move almost without precedent for a third-party congressional candidate, Hutchinson went on television with four spots, including a harsh negative attack on Filner. But Filner beat her to the punch by establishing her negatives with voters first.

Ultimately, Filner was able to sustain the message that he was the best agent for change. He won convincingly with 57 percent, while Valencia earned 29 percent. Hutchinson was contained at 11 percent, with Batchelder at 3 percent.

The total nontraditional party vote dropped from 20 percent in the August baseline poll to just 14 percent by election day as Filner won back previously wavering Democrats and much of the Perot vote. He should be in a strong position to hold this seat against future challengers.

The Filner and other campaigns provide important lessons for all campaign professionals as they prepare for these multiparty races.

* Advance warning through voter opinion research is essential to identify the potential appeal of and danger from third-party candidates.

Questions to be explored through polling include:

How strong is existing support for third-party candidates, and who supports them?

How strong is potential support for a third-party candidate, as measured by the likelihood of casting "protest" votes against mainstream candidates?

How deeply is the third-party candidate cutting into the assumed base support of traditional party candidates?

How many key swing voters are leaning toward the third party?

Indeed, to facilitate analysis, pollsters should in many cases oversample Independents or other demographic groups such as young voters and weak Democrats who are more susceptible to third-party candidates.

* Voter opinion research should also test positive and negative themes for third-party candidates along with the major contenders in "push" questions. This precaution allows for closer examination of the impact of an active campaign by a third-party contender as well as the testing of possible negative facts if their use should become necessary.

* If voter opinion research confirms a third-party threat, conduct thorough opposition research. Forewarned is forearmed.

* Develop a campaign strategy that can respond to attacks from two or even three sides. Be prepared for a third-party candidate with real financial resources, capable of funding television and direct mail.

* Increasingly precise levels of targeting will be necessary, again guided by survey results, to deliver messages via mail or phone banks that address the concerns of potential third-party voters.

* Mainstream party candidates should plan for a narrow victory, even if your candidate is heavily favored. Every vote counts in a three-way -- or four-way -- race.

John Fairbank is a principal of and Paul Goodwin is a senior associate at Fairbank, Maullin & Associates, an opinion research and public policy analysis company in Santa Monica, CA.