THIRD-PARTY GAINS: Third-party and independent candidates found no room to breathe in this presidential year. Locked out of debates and neglected by major media, independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Bob Barr, Green Cynthia McKinney and their compatriots tallied roughly 1.5 million votes combined--barely half Nader's total on the Green line in 2000. But down-ballot races showed some cracks in the duopoly.

The Vermont Progressive Party won its first State Senate seat and five State House seats. New York's Working Families Party, capitalizing on laws permitting fusion of major- and minor-party vote totals for co-endorsed candidates, provided the victory margin for Democrat Eric Massa's Congressional win and helped Democrats grab control of the State Senate. In Connecticut, a Hartford WFP candidate was the first third-party contender in history to be elected as a city registrar of voters.

The Greens won an Arkansas State House seat and took advantage of the Republican abandonment of Congressional races to win 200,000 votes (21 percent) for US Senate candidate Rebekah Kennedy. New Mexico Green Rick Lass, who sought one of five seats on the state's Public Regulation Commission by running on a clean-energy, green-jobs platform, won 44 percent of the vote in a contest with a Democrat. San Francisco Green Ross Mirkarimi was re-elected to the board of supervisors, setting the electorally savvy lefty up for a possible mayoral run. Also in San Francisco, independent progressive Cindy Sheehan easily beat the Republican to finish second behind House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Vermont independent gubernatorial candidate Anthony Pollina, with support from the Progressive Party, major unions and daily newspapers, placed ahead of the Democrat to finish second in the race for the Green Mountain State's top job.    JOHN NICHOLS

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