The Virginian-Pilot 
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Saturday, July 20, 1996               TAG: 9607200004
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Letter 
                                            LENGTH:   26 lines

TR OUTPOLLED H. ROSS

Editorial page editor Keith Monroe writes (column, July 12): ``No third-party candidate has ever come closer to the presidency than Perot's 19 percent.''

The 1912 race for president holds the record for being the election in which a third-party candidate came closest to the presidency. In that election, the results were as follows:

Woodrow Wilson, Democrat

6,301,254

Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive

4,127,788

William H. Taft, Republican

3,485,831

Former President Theodore Roosevelt not only received close to 30 percent of the vote but came in second, ahead of the Republican candidate. See Page 531 of Theodore Roosevelt - A Life, by Nathan Miller (1992).

JOSEPH J. McGRENRA

Virginia Beach, July 13, 1996 by CNB