New third party movement strives for compromise
TAMPA, Fla. - As voters cast ballots in the midterms, polls found a majority had unfavorable opinions of the Republicans and Democrats. Pew Research found 56% want a third major party. New movements are trying to tap into that, and one of the biggest in Florida is called the Forward Party.
"I’m a math guy and right now the numbers are on the sides of the extremes within the parties. That’s why the parties don’t seem like they have it together," said Andrew Yang who ran in the 2020 Democratic Presidential race and beat expectations.
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Yang partnered with Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey to lead a new third-party movement called Forward, which caters to political moderates.
"Those people in the middle are saying I don't want to be associated with either of these because they feel they are going to the extremes. Both sides, both parties," said Whitman.
The majority of Americans want a third party option on their ballots.
Yang thinks Forward has found ways to succeed where prior third-party movements have failed.
"Well they focus on the wrong things. The forward party is going to do the opposite of what other parties have done in that we’re starting local," he said.
For example, Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive Bull Party and Ross Perot’s Reform Party were top-down movements. They revolved around one national figure and then shrank after those figures lost.
"We’re the opposite. We’re building from the ground up," Yang noted. "We’re not running a candidate in the national race in ‘24 because our focus is local."
Yang and Whiteman want Forward to be all about uniting moderate voters.
Forward is recruiting candidates for local office, and building a bench for national races years down the road. In doing this, Forward leaders say they won’t be accused of spoiling a close presidential race in 2024 as other third parties have been accused in the past. For example, Al Gore claimed Third Party candidate Ralph Nader disproportionately pulled votes from him in the 2000 Presidential race, while George W. Bush won in a squeaker.
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Other third parties also struggle to win races based on what they represent. Some focus on single-issues. Others develop a whole platform that skews right or left, then wind up looking similar to Republicans or Democrats, and get absorbed or largely left behind.
Forward is built on the values of moderation and compromise.
To that end, it welcomes candidates with a range of views on the issues, as long as they’re committed to finding common ground.
"We have common zones of agreement on even some of the most divisive issues, and it's really our political system that’s failing us and letting us down," said Yang.
Forward also calls for election reforms. They include scrapping closed primaries (in which only registered Republicans and Democrats can vote on their parties’ nominees), in favor of open primaries.
"Closed primaries push elected officials to extremes, reaches out to comparatively small far-right far-left base which incentivizes them to govern that way," explained Forward’s Managing Director of Communities & Building Joel Searby.
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The Forward Party also opposes Gerrymandered districts drawn to favor one party or the other, and supports ranked-choice voting. That means voters get to pick second-choice candidates, so if their first choice loses and no candidate has a majority, the second choice gets their vote.
The Forward Party is a supporter of ranked-choice voting.
"It takes away the spoiler argument, and it takes away the lesser of two evils problem," Searby said.
In the Forward movement, a combination of former Democrats like Yang and former Republicans like David Jolly who represented Pinellas County in Congress see an untapped market of voters who tell pollsters they’re independent.
"About 40-percent of the country say I don’t like any of those choices, and I can’t find a home," Jolly told an audience of Forward activists in Tampa.
Most of the 40 percent he’s referring to vote Republican or Democrat, but Forward says many are holding their noses when they do it.
"We have to do the work to show you do not have to be trapped in this two-party system," said Jordan Marlowe, the Mayor of Newberry in Alachua County.
Marlowe is Forward’s first sitting mayor.
Both democrats and republicans are backing the new party.
"In small-town America we just need to get things done. We need to pave roads we need to pick up the trash," he said. "These culture wars, they’re distracting. They’re harmful. We need to put those aside, we need to focus on what our residents need which is government that works for them."
Forward members could have tried to work within their former parties to steer them more toward the middle. That’s what President Clinton and the DLC did with the Democrats in the 90s. But Yang says the two main parties are now too dug in to move.
"If you look at DC. If you are seen as someone who is trying to bring the party to the middle, you are an endangered species," he said.
For now, Forward is focusing on a dozen states including Florida.
"I’d put my money on we’re looking at a good ten years for Forward to be everywhere," Marlowe shared.