Independent candidate

An independent candidate is a political candidate who runs for office without the nomination of any political party. Sometimes an independent candidate may in fact be a member of a political party but run as an independent for one reason or another.

In some cases because of state ballot access laws, an independent candidate will form a one-time "political party" solely for the purpose of their campaign, for example the "Connecticut for Lieberman Party" in 2006. In some other cases, the independent candidacy is a precursor to the formation of a new political party, such as with Ross Perot's 1992 independent campaign for President which later led to the founding of the Reform Party. There also exist numerous cases where a disaffected Democrat or Republican, believing their own party has gone in the wrong direction, will run as an independent seeking to be a "spoiler" against their own party. In yet some other cases the independent candidate is neither a disaffected member of an existing party nor seeking to form a new party, but simply somebody running as an independent candidate.