Margaret Jane Trowe, February 19, 1948 -
VP candidate for Socialist Workers Party (aka Independent) (2000, 2004)
Running mate with nominee (2000, 2004): James Edward Harris Jr. (b. 1948)
Popular vote (2000): 7,039 (0.01%)
Popular vote (2004): 7,108 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign (2000):
The ticket of James Harris for President and Margaret Trowe for Vice-President continued a practice the Socialist Workers Party had continuously employed since 1980 of nominating an African American male as the standard bearer with a Euro American female as the running-mate.
By the dawn of the new millennium the SWP had already started to look like a living museum piece. The Castroist group had pretty much put their days of tumult behind them as various factions split away into their own political parties. Some critics and ex-members described the SWP as an encapsulated cult.
The SWP had a policy of moving their most ardent followers around like missionaries, assigning cities for them to reside in for short periods of time as they worked to organize the working class. This is a possible explanation for Trowe's frequent change of residence. In 2000 she was in Minnesota.
Trowe visited Australia and New Zealand as part of her campaign while Harris apparently visited Europe in an effort to gain international support. Other SWP candidates had done this in the past. In the former country in August 2000 she told an interviewer about some of the realities of third party electioneering: "All right, we have a modest budget, $US100,000 for two people to travel for six months. We travel by car and we stay on futons a lot, but we're meeting fighting workers and farmers and people struggling for important social issues who are encouraging us. And we also are finding that there's an increase in resistance."
On the ballot in 13 states + DC and recorded write-ins in 3 others, the Harris/Trowe ticket's highest popular votes percentage could be found in District of Columbia, Louisiana, and Mississippi-- each with 0.06%. They placed 8th nationally.
The campaign (2004):
The official SWP ticket faced a double whammy as far the Constitution was concerned. The Presidential nominee was Róger Calero, who was born in Nicaragua, and the VP was Arrin Hawkins, who was in her late 20s, little details that made both of them ineligible to hold the offices they sought. Many states would not allow the duo to be listed on their ballots, so the Harris/Trowe ticket returned as stand-ins. As it turned out there were more states with the substitute team than there were with the official 2004 nominees.
By 2004 Trowe was now in Massachusetts.
This double ticket situation takes some figuring, and it doesn't help that several trusted sources have conflicting information. From what I can sort out Harris/Trowe were on the ballot in Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin. They were write-ins in Delaware and Ohio. Calero/Hawkins were on the ballot in Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont. They were write-ins in Connecticut. Math is not my strongest subject but I count 7108 votes for Harris/Trowe, 3689 for Calero/Hawkins.
Harris/Trowe's strongest percentages were in Mississippi 0.11%, District of Columbia 0.06%, and Louisiana 0.05%.
Election history:
1977 - Mayor of Seattle (Wash.) (Nonpartisan) - defeated
1998 - US Senate (Iowa) (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
2005 - Mayor of Boston (Socialist Workers Party) - failed to attain ballot status
2006 - US House of Representatives (Fla.) (No Party Affiliation) - defeated
2010 - Iowa Secretary of Agriculture (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
2013 - Des Moines (Iowa) City Council (Nonpartisan) - defeated
2017 - Mayor of Albany (NY) (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
2018 - US Senate (NY) (Socialist Workers Party) - defeated
Other occupations: bus driver, sheet metal grinder, welder, meatpacker, printing work, union activist
Notes:
1977 opponents (Washington State triva alert!!!) included Charlie Royer (winner), Paul Schell,
Wayne Larkin, Phyllis Lamphere, Sam Smith, John Miller, and Richard Van Horn. I was also living
in Seattle during part of 1977.
Winner in the 1998 election was Chuck Grassley.
Was a write-in in the 2006 and 2018 elections.
Speaks Spanish and French.
