Large and populous as a nation, California presents unique challenges to a third party seeking statewide success.. In 2002, California Greens ran a slate for all seven statewide partisan coartisan constitutional offices — and experienced record success.
All seven candidates finished at or above the previous California Green high for any statewide race, which was 3.9 percent by Margaret Garcia (Secretary of State) in 1994 and Ralph Nader (President) in 2000.
Gubernatorial candidate Peter Miguel Camejo received 5.3 percent — more than four times the previous California Green high for the office — and 381,700 votes for Governor in 2002. Second among Green gubernatorial candidates in the nation, Camejo's total was also the highest third-party percentage against Democratic and Republican candidates in 68 years.
In 1978 Ed Clark received 5.5 percent running for president as an independent, before the Libertarian Party had a ballot line in the state.
Camejo's strong campaign put significant pressure on centrist Democratic incumbent frontrunner Gray Davis, who refused to debate Camejo.
Camejo finished with 10 percent or higher in nine counties — all in Northern California — totaling 3.8 million people, more than in 24 U.S. states.
Focusing on living wages and labor rights, as well as solar power, universal health care and home ownership, Camejo made strong inroads in both the Latino community and the Latino press, frequently appearing on Spanish-language talk shows across the state.
The strong Camejo campaign, and that of the entire slate, raised the profile of instant-runoff voting as a desirable alternative electoral system for many key California Democrats — possibly portending a future electoral system change.
The highest statewide Green total was for Laura Wells for Controller: 5.8 percent and 409,172 votes, the third highest state vote total in U.S. Green history, behind Nader's 418,707 in California in 2000 and Ben Levy's 450,885 in Texas for state Supreme Court the same year.
In a number of California cities and towns, including San Francisco, Arcata, Berkeley and a number of smaller towns, Camejo and other Green slate candidates came in second ahead of the Republicans. Support was also clearly evident in the rise of Green voter registrations — just the final 12 days of official registration in October saw a 3.3 percent rise statewide.
With 155,952 Californians registered Green as of election day, Green state candidates received between 275,000 and 409,000 votes. With about half of Greens voting, this means that hundreds of thousands of other Californians voted Green.
By contrast, the top Democratic candidate received just more than 3.56 million votes while there are 6.8 million registered Democrats.
