How does the UK manage to have an (albeit shitty) multiparty system with first past the post voting when the US has never been able to break out of the two party system?
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I have two main thoughts on this:
1. Most 3rd parties in the UK are regional parties: SNP, Plaid Cymru. and the mess that is Northern Ireland.
There are no analogues to this in the US. People might joke about Texas succeeding, but a Texas Freedom party is never going to win a congressional district.
2. The districts are smaller.
The UK has 650(?) districts vs 435 in the US. If I did the math right US districts have 7.6x the population of the UK. This means each individual vote in the UK is worth more. With more seats and less population per seat the unlikely event of a 3rd party winning a seat becomes more likely. This is self perpetuating as once 3rd parties can win seats people are more likely to support them and leads to more seats.
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