The first green party in the United States, the Green Party was officially formed on July 30, 2001. Party organizers sought to provide an alternative to Third Way politics in the Democratic Party and promote green politics via electoral action and local organizing. The Greens gained national attention during the 2000 presidential election, when the ticket composed of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke won 2.7% of the popular vote.
In 1984, the Green movement began as the decentralized Green Committees of Correspondence, which evolved into a more centralized structure by 1990 with forming leadership, bylaws, and a platform.The organization conducted grassroots organizing efforts, educational activities and electoral campaigns. Co-founders included John Rensenbrink and Howie Hawkins.
The Greens had long been divided between fundis, who saw electoral politics as corrupting and wanted to focus on local activism, and realos, who saw electoral politics as a crucial engine of social change. These factions compromised at the 1990 Green National Convention, which would form the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) in 1991. In 1990, the realo faction created the Green Politics Network, and in 1996, the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), which sought to run Greens in elections and form a nationwide Green party. The ASGP encouraged and backed Nader's presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. The G/GPUSA-ASGP split grew, and in 2001, the two formally split. The ASGP formed an official national party, recognized by the FEC, soon renamed the Green Party of the United States (GPUS). Most state affiliates joined the ASGP. In 2019, the G/GPUSA dissolved.[citation needed] In 2019, the GPUS joined the São Paulo Forum.
In the 2000 presidential election, the Nader campaign won 2,882,955 votes (2.74%), placing 3rd, the highest Green vote total and share then or since. The Nader campaign led to a massive increase of voter registration and donations for the Green party.[citation needed] The Nader campaign was criticized by some political analysts, academics, and Democrats as spoiling the election toward RepublicanGeorge W. Bush. In 2008, Nader rejected this, saying Al Gore could have won in other ways. In 2019, Nader said he regretted not entering the 2000 Democratic primary, but strongly rejected the label "spoiler" for himself or Jill Stein.
In 2012, the Stein campaign won 469,627 votes (0.36%), placing 4th. This was the best Green performance by far since Nader in 2000.
In 2016, the Stein campaign won 1,457,218 votes (1.07%), placing 3rd. After his campaign lost the presidential primary, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders told supporters to vote Clinton, not Green, to avoid a "protest vote" that splits the left-of-center vote. After the general, Democrats again criticized the Green Party as spoiling the election to Donald Trump.
In 2020, the Hawkins campaign won 407,068 votes (0.26%), placing 4th. The Hawkins campaign led to renewed interest in a dues-paying membership Green Party, rather than one based on state parties. The New York Times highlighted several instances where Republicans worked to get the Green Party on ballots in close races, hoping that it would split votes from Democratic candidates.
In 2024, the Stein campaign won 862,049 votes (0.56%), placing 3rd. In September, Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the Green Party's political strategy as "not serious", a failure to build political power at the local level, and only "show[ing] up every four years" to run presidential candidates. In November, the Global Greens alliance and European Green Party broke ties with the US Green Party, asking Stein to withdraw her candidacy for fear of spoiling the election to Trump. GPUS rejoined the Global Greens in 2026.
The Green Party supports the implementation of a single-payer healthcare system and the abolition of private health insurance in the United States.[bettersourceneeded] They have also called for contraception and abortion procedures to be available on demand.[bettersourceneeded] The Green Party has called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, an act that prohibits the use of federal taxpayer funds for abortions, unless in the cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.
In 2006, the Green Party developed a Green New Deal that would ultimately serve as a transitional plan to a 100% clean, renewable energy including solar and wind energy by 2030 utilizing a carbon tax, jobs guarantee, tuition-free college, single-payer healthcare and a focus on using public programs. Howie Hawkins focused his gubernatorial campaign on the Green New Deal, which was the first time the policy was introduced.[bettersourceneeded]Jill Stein also developed her presidential campaign based on the Green New Deal.
Ecosocialism
In 2016, the Green Party passed a motion in favor of rejecting both capitalism and state socialism, supporting instead an "alternative economic system based on ecology and decentralization of power".[bettersourceneeded] The motion states the change that the party says could be described as promoting "ecological socialism", "communalism", or perhaps the "cooperative commonwealth".[bettersourceneeded] The eco-socialist economy proposed by Howie Hawkins is similar to market socialism, with a large sector of democratically controlled public enterprises, a large sector of cooperative enterprises, and a smaller sector of small businesses and self-employed.[bettersourceneeded] Consumer goods and services would be sold to consumers in the market by cooperatives, public enterprises, and small businesses.[bettersourceneeded] Services that would be for free include health care, education, child care, and urban mass transit. Goods and services that would be available at low cost would include public housing, power, broadband, and water.[bettersourceneeded]Howie Hawkins, who was nominated by the Green Party to run for president of the United States in 2020, identifies as a libertarian socialist.[bettersourceneeded]
In the early decades of Green organizing in the United States, the prevailing American system of money-dominated elections was universally rejected by Greens, so that some Greens were reluctant to have Greens participate in the election system at all because they deemed the campaign finance system inherently corrupt. Other Greens felt strongly that the Green Party should develop in the electoral arena, and many of these Greens felt that adopting an alternative model of campaign finance, emphasizing self-imposed contribution limits, would present a wholesome and attractive contrast to the odious campaign finance practices of the money-dominated major parties.[citation needed]
Some Greens feel that the Green Party's position should be simply to follow the laws and regulations of campaign finance. Other Greens argue that it would injure the Green Party not to practice a principled stand against the anti-democratic influence of money in the political process. Candidates for office, like Jill Stein, the 2012 and 2016 Green Party nominee for the President of the United States, typically rely on smaller donations to fund their campaigns.[citation needed]
The Green Party advocates for the Palestinian right of return and cutting all U.S. aid to Israel. It has also expressed support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The Green Party supports a bi-national one-state solution, with the establishment of a "secular, democratic state for Palestinians and Israelis on the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan as the national home of both peoples, with Jerusalem as its capital." This is because of the fact that Israeli settlements have carved up the West Bank and effectively made a viable contiguous Palestinian state impossible.
In 2017, the Green Party opposed Israel's Nation-state law, which had just been introduced by Avi Dichter, on the grounds that it codified apartheid, and called on aid to countries violating human rights to be suspended.
The Green National Committee (GNC) runs the Green Party inbetween conventions. The GNC is composed of delegates elected by affiliated state parties. The state parties also appoint delegates to serve on the various standing committees of the GNC. The National Committee elects a steering committee of seven co-chairs, a secretary and a treasurer to oversee daily operations. The National Committee performs most of its business online, but it also holds an annual national meeting to conduct business in person.[bettersourceneeded]
Most state Green Parties allow both registered voters and dues-paying members to vote on internal Green party elections and referendums. Over 2019-2021, Howie Hawkins argued that the Green Party should instead use a dues-paying membership model, similar to that of the Democratic Socialists of America and most European Green parties, where only dues-payers can control the party. In 2026, the Green National Committee considered a study of the proposal.
Registered voters
Voter registration with the Green Party of the United States by year (1986–2020)
As of July 2026[update] the Green Party has 255,119 (0.20%) registered voters, the 4th-highest in the United States. California has the most registered Greens, at 113,790 (0.49%), while Maine has the highest proportion, at 30,687 (3.42%). At its 2004 peak, the Green Party had 318,931 registered voters. The GPUS is the third-largest Green party in the world, ahead of the GP of England and Wales but behind the PV of Brazil and PVE of Mexico.[citation needed] The table below shows the total number of voters registered with the Green Party in each year.
The Green Party has had limited electoral success at the state legislature and local level. Since the party's creation, 2 Greens have been elected to state legislatures and some other state legislators have switched parties after being originally elected as Democrats. The Green Party has never won a statewide or federal election.
Though some Green congressional candidates have topped 20%, no nominee of the Green Party has been elected to office in the federal government. In 2016, Mark Salazar set a new record for a Green Party nominee for Congress. Running in the Arizona 8th district against incumbent Republican Congressman Trent Franks, Salazar received 93,954 votes or 31.43%.
State legislatures
The Green Party has had limited electoral success in state legislatures. In 1999, Audie Bock was elected to the California State Assembly on the Green Party ballot line, but switched her registration to independent seven months later running as such in the 2000 election.
In 2010, former Green Party leader Ben Chipman was elected to the Maine House of Representatives as an unenrolled candidate and was re-elected in 2012 and 2014. In 2015, he registered as a Democrat, and served in the Maine Senate.
Local offices
Gayle McLaughlin was twice elected mayor of Richmond, California, defeating two Democrats in 2006 and then reelected in 2010; and elected to City Council in 2014 after completing her second term as mayor. With a population of over 100,000 people, it was the largest American city with a Green mayor.
The Green Party has seen its greatest local electoral success on the Pacific Coast, Upper Great Lakes, and Northeast.[bettersourceneeded]As of June 2007[update], Californians had elected 55 of the 226 office-holding Greens nationwide. Other states with high numbers of Green elected officials included Pennsylvania (31), Wisconsin (23), Massachusetts (18) and Maine (17). Madison, Wisconsin is the city with the most Green elected officials (8), followed by Portland, Maine (7).[citation needed]
Defections from other parties
In 2012, Fred Smith was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives, but re-registered as a Democrat in 2014.
On September 21, 2017, Ralph Chapman, a member of the Maine House of Representatives, switched his party registration from unaffiliated to Green, providing the Green Party with their first state-level representative since 2014. Henry John Bear became a member of the Green Party in the same year, though Bear is a nonvoting tribal member.
Results from 1991-1994 represent the unified G/GPUSA, from 1995-2001 the G/GPUSA faction Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), and 2001 onward the modern Green Party of the United States (GPUS).
Best results in major races
National votes for the Greens at presidential elections.
12Voter registration rank excludes the many different "Independent" parties, with which many voters register in error, and which usually do not run any competitive candidates.
↑Not recognized as a Senate election by the federal government, and shadow senators do not serve in Congress in any capacity.
↑Not recognized as a Senate election by the federal government, and shadow senators do not serve in Congress in any capacity.
↑Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez, a Green, ran an independent campaign and received 0.6% of the vote, but they were not affiliated with the Green Party.
↑Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo, a Green, ran an independent campaign and received 0.4% of the vote; however, they were not affiliated with the Green Party.
↑Nader was not formally nominated by the party itself, but he did receive the endorsement of a large number of state parties and is considered as the de facto Green Party candidate.
↑In Iowa and Vermont, Anne Goeke was Nader's running mate, in New Jersey it was Madelyn Hoffman and in New York it was Muriel Tillinghast.
12The Green Party of Rhode Island was disaffiliated since December 29, 2020 due to endorsing Joe Biden for president during the 2020 United States presidential election. The Ocean State Green Party was created in its stead.
↑Burden, Barry C. (2003). "Chapter 11: Minor Parties in the 2000 Presidential Election". In Weisberg, Herbert F.; Wilcox, Clyde (eds.). Models of Voting in Presidential Elections: The 2000 U.S. Election. Stanford University Press. pp.206–227. ISBN978-0-8047-4856-8.
↑Herron, Michael C.; Lewis, Jeffrey B. (April 24, 2006). "Did Ralph Nader spoil Al Gore's Presidential bid? A ballot-level study of Green and Reform Party voters in the 2000 Presidential election". Quarterly Journal of Political Science. 2 (3). Now Publishing Inc.: 205–226. doi:10.1561/100.00005039. Pdf.
Capra, Fritjof and Spretnak, Charlene (1984). Green Politics: The Global Promise. New York: E. P. Dutton, distributed by Penguin Random House. ISBN978-0-525-24231-4. Chapter Nine, "The Green Alternative – It Can Happen Here", examined the prospects for a Green party or movement in the U.S., which co-author Spretnak then helped organize.
Coleman, Daniel A. (1994). Ecopolitics: Building a Green Society. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, distributed by Chicago Distribution Center. ISBN978-0-8135-2055-1. By a co-author of the first Green platform. Chapter 10, "From Participation to Power", provides a first-hand and sometimes cautionary look at the U.S. Green movement.
Gaard, Greta (1998). Ecological Politics: Ecofeminists and the Greens. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, distributed by Chicago Distribution Center. ISBN978-1-56639-569-4. Scholarly survey of the U.S. Greens' first 15 years, from an explicitly social justice and ecofeminist perspective.
Green, Donald J. (2010). Third-Party Matters: Politics, Presidents, and Third Parties in American History. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger / ABC-CLIO, distributed by Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN978-1-4408-3639-8. By a lecturer in American political history. Chapter Six, "Ralph Nader and the Green Party", argues that Nader's 2000 campaign was one of the most consequential third-party efforts in U.S. history.
Hawkins, Howie, ed. (2006). Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate. Chicago: Haymarket Books, distributed by Consortium Books. ISBN978-1-931859-30-1. Twenty-four Green activists and "allies" including David Cobb, Matt Gonzalez, and Norman Solomon discuss how Greens can disrupt the two-party domination of U.S. politics.
Mayer, Margit, and Ely, John, eds. (1998). The German Greens: Paradox Between Movement and Party. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, distributed by Chicago Distribution Center. ISBN978-1-56639-516-8. Co-editor Ely is a social and political commentator. His Chapter 10, "Green Politics in Europe and the United States", includes a section on the U.S. Greens from a Euro-left perspective.
Nader, Ralph (2002). Crashing the Party: Taking On the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender. New York: St. Martin's Press, distributed by Macmillan Distribution. ISBN978-0-312-28433-6. Detailed description and analysis of the author's 2000 Green Party Presidential campaign.
Rensenbrink, John (1999). Against All Odds: The Green Transformation of American Politics. Raymond, ME: Leopold Press, now permanently closed, no distributor. ISBN978-0-9660629-1-5. Parts III and IV discuss the Green movement and Green Party, respectively.
Satin, Mark (2023). Up From Socialism: My 60-Year Search for a Healing New Radical Politics. New York: Bombardier Books, distributed by Simon & Schuster. ISBN978-1-63758-663-1. Chapter Eight, "Co-founding the U.S. Green Party Movement", is a first-hand and often critical account of the formative years of the U.S. Greens, from an explicitly radical centrist perspective.
Sifry, Micah L. (2002). Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America. New York: Routledge, distributed by Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-415-93142-7. By a former assistant editor at The Nation. Section III, "Organizing the Left", includes researched, sympathetic material on the early U.S. Greens.
Tokar, Brian (1994). The Green Alternative: Creating an Ecological Future. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, distributed by Ingram Publisher Services. By a founder of the Left Greens. Introduces the U.S. Greens and discusses their choices and prospects.
Whaley, Rick (2007). How Green Is the Green Party?: Stories from the Margins. Ossipee, NH: Beech River Books, distributed by Ingram Content Group. ISBN978-0-9776514-9-8. By a founder of the Wisconsin Greens. Critical look at the U.S. Greens from an explicitly decentralist and bioregionalist perspective.
Zelko, Frank, and Brinkmann, Carolin, eds. (2006). Green Parties: Reflections on the First Three Decades. Washington, DC: Heinrich Böll Foundation North America, distributed by University of Chicago Press via its Chicago Distribution Center. Large booklet, no ISBN. Symposium papers by global Greens including U.S. Green activists John Rensenbrink, Lorna Salzman, Steven J. Schmidt, Charlene Spretnak, and Brian Tokar.
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