By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

With most of the voting public expressing strong disapproval of the Bush administration and Congress, and giving mediocre marks to the Democratic Party and poorer grades to the Republican Party, it would seem to be a favorable time for third-party or independent hopefuls to run for major office.

But there are numerous impediments for third-party and independent candidates in a nation where the two major parties have coexisted for more than 150 years. Restrictive ballot access laws are a burden. Democratic and Republican candidates dominate candidate debates, and media coverage can be scarce. There are no party apparatuses to help raise money or identify, register and turn out voters. Most people who go to the polls are accustomed to voting Democratic or Republican.

CQ Politics, in its ratings of all 481 contests for House, Senate and governor, doesn’t predict any outright victories for third-party or independent candidates in the Nov. 4 election. But there are some candidates for office this year who are waging campaigns outside of the two-party structure who may receive an outsized vote share or perhaps otherwise influence the outcome.

We’ve profiled a few of those candidates below. We’re excluding any third-party or independent candidates in districts or states where there is either a Democratic or a Republican candidate, but not both; in those cases, the vote for that third-party or independent candidate will be inflated and would have been much lower if the race included two major-party candidates.

•Dean Barkley, Minnesota Senate. Barkley is technically a former U.S. senator, having been appointed in late 2002 to fill the final two months of the unexpired term of the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died two weeks before an election that Republican Norm Coleman won. Barkley, who’s waged several unsuccessful campaigns for the House and Senate, is the nominee of the Independence Party, which he helped found in 1992. He’ll be on a ballot that includes Coleman, who’s seeking a second term, and Democratic nominee Al Franken, the “Saturday Night Live” humorist, author and former talk show host who is running neck-and-neck with the incumbent. Barkley has received close to 20 percent of the vote according to some surveys.

• Michael Jackson, Louisiana’s 6th district. Jackson is a Democratic state representative in Baton Rouge, the largest city in the district in which Democrat Don Cazayoux was elected in a May special election. Jackson this spring was a candidate for the Democratic nomination that went to Cazayoux, but he’s running as an independent for the full-term election. Jackson is an African-American candidate in a district in which about one-third of residents are of the same race, and so there’s a possibility that Jackson could win enough Democratic-voting blacks to keep Cazayoux below a majority of the vote — and perhaps help elect Republican state Sen. Bill Cassidy.

• Jan Schneider, Florida’s 13th district. This is Schneider’s fourth consecutive run in the Sarasota-area 13th District, held by freshman Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan . But it’s her first try as an independent after three previous attempts as a Democrat. Schneider, a Yale-educated lawyer, was the Democratic nominee against Republican Katherine Harris in 2002 and 2004, taking 45 percent of the vote each time. In 2006, Democratic officials backed bank executive Christine Jennings as a more electable candidate than Schneider; Jennings easily won the primary but lost narrowly to Buchanan in the November election. Now Buchanan, Jennings and Schneider are on the same ballot. Buchanan has the edge.

• David Dillon, Minnesota’s 3rd district. Dillon, a businessman, is the nominee of the Independence Party for the suburban Twin Cities district that Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad is leaving open to retire. Of Dillon’s $157,000 in campaign receipts, about $123,000 has come from the candidate himself. A SurveyUSA poll taken early this month had Dillon taking 8 percent, compared to newcomer Ashwin Madia’s 46 percent and state Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen’s 43 percent.

• David Krikorian, Ohio’s 2nd district. Krikorian, who has a background in business, is running against Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt and Democratic physician Victoria Wulsin, who were opponents in a 2006 race that Schmidt won by one percentage point. Krikorian posted total campaign receipts of $190,000 through the end of September, with about half coming from individual donors and the other half from Krikorian in the form of candidate loans or contributions. Krikorian participated with Schmidt and Wulsin in a recent candidate debate.

• Michael Hsing, New Jersey’s 7th district. Hsing, a councilman in Bridgewater township in north-central New Jersey, served as a Republican delegate to the 2000 and 2004 conventions that nominated George W. Bush . But he’s running as an independent in an election in which most of the vote will accrue to either Republican state Sen. Leonard Lance or Democratic state Rep. Linda Stender. Two other independent candidates also are running to succeed Republican Rep. Mike Ferguson , who is retiring after four terms.

CQ Politics is including Hsing in this compilation in part because his updated campaign finance report shows that he has raised $186,000, much of it from individuals who share his Asian ancestry. That’s a good total for an independent candidate who is not benefiting from personal or political action committee money.