There’s a new party in town — but it may not last long.
Andrew Yang, losing candidate for president and New York City mayor, is one of the founders of the Forward Party. Rob Kim/Getty Images
People are also reading… But if the leaders of a new, centrist political party whose formation was announced on July 28, 2022, accomplish their goal, the “Forward Party” will attract many voters who no longer identify as Democrats or Republicans and it will become a force for moderation - and an institution - in U.S. electoral politics.
1. Don’t count on itPolitical scientist Alexander Cohen of Clarkson University acknowledges that the U.S. two-party system has long been “besieged.” Critics of party politics in general date to the country’s founding. “The American electoral system is the primary reason why the U.S. is the sole major democracy with only two parties consistently capable of electing public officials,” writes Hershey. “Votes are counted in most American elections using plurality rules, or ‘winner take all.’ Whoever gets the most votes wins the single seat up for election.”
If that system existed in the U.S., that would mean even a small party would be smart to run Congressional candidates, because even if the party only got 5% of the vote, “they could win 5% of the state’s U.S. House seats.” “The most successful third parties in U.S. politics don’t typically rise to dominance but instead challenge the major parties enough to force them to change course,” writes political scientist Bernard Tamas of Valdosta State University.
For example, the Greenback Party in the 1870s and the Populist Party in the 1890s both aimed, via electoral victories, to force the major parties to adopt policies supporting “poor farmers and opposing business monopolies.” The Populist Party was especially successful in pressing the Democrats to embrace those positions.
“The Progressive Party existed for less than a decade, for example,” Tamas writes. “But by strategically winning the votes of moderate conservatives and thereby undermining Republicans’ electoral goals, even if briefly, a new third party could stop the GOP from hurtling farther down an extreme and undemocratic path.”Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | Omny Studio The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in November 1. Pennsylvania 2. Nevada 3.
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