A Third Party in the United States, Does It Deepen Political Divisions or Fulfill the Demands of Voters?

Former American politicians are heading to establish a new political party away from the dominance of the Democratic and Republican parties in the country, putting before the American voter a third option away from the state of division and exacerbating stagnation that dominates more and more between politicians in both parties.

Observers believe that this step may reveal the extent to which Americans, politicians and voters, feel about the aging of the current system, both as a system and as active persons, while others pointed out that third parties have historically failed to thrive under the two-party system in America.

In the previous elections, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton competed, and in the last elections, Joe Biden won over Trump. These elections were not a typical picture of American politics, but rather slipped into accusations of fraud and unprecedented verbal abuse, and clashes that amounted to storming the symbol of American politics, Congress.

It is noteworthy that the current American party system includes the Democratic and Republican parties, which have won the presidential elections continuously since 1852 and have controlled Congress since 1856. Besides those two there are 38 other federal parties, not counting regional parties. Still, they practically do not affect politics in the country.

 

Third Party

After decades of bipartisan domination of the US political scene, on July 27, 2022, former US officials announced the formation of a new third party to attract millions of voters who say they resent the country's decades-old two-party system.

Reuters reported that a group of former officials from the Republicans and Democrats established the new party under the name Forward, which addresses what it describes as the moderate majority in the United States.

Headed by the former Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang, and the former Republican governor of New Jersey, Christine Todd Whitman, the Forward party seeks to reach the ballot papers to put forward candidates in the upcoming US presidential elections scheduled for 2024.

Party leaders will hold a series of events nationwide this fall to launch its platform, attract support, register members in the US, and organize polling access. They will hold a formal launch ceremony in Houston on September 24, and the party's first national convention will be in a major US city next summer.

The formation of the new party takes place through the merging of three political groups that have emerged in recent years as a response to the increasingly polarized and closed American political system.

The merger includes: Renew America Movement, founded in 2021 by dozens of former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the Forward Party, founded by Andrew Yang, who left the Democratic Party in 2021 and became independent, and Serve America Movement, a group of Democrats, Republicans, and independents founded by former Republican Congressman David Jolly.

One of the main pillars of the new party is the revitalization of a just and prosperous economy, giving Americans more confidence in a government capable of success, and more freedom of opinion.

The party aims to officially register and run in 30 states by the end of 2023, and in all 50 states by late 2024, in time for the 2024 presidential election.

 

Political Need

New party leaders revealed, through an opinion article they published in the Washington Post on July 27, 2022, that they hope the party will become an effective alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate American politics, noting that political extremism is tearing the country apart, the two major parties have failed to address the crisis.

“Today's outdated political parties have failed to meet the parties' needs, and as a result most Americans feel unrepresented,” they added.

New party leaders cited a Gallup poll last year that showed two-thirds of Americans believe a third party is needed.

This result was a marked increase from an earlier poll conducted shortly before the 2020 presidential election, and found that only 57% of Americans sought third-party entry, reflecting a trend that has pushed the idea up in recent years.

In June 2022, Gallup conducted another poll and asked respondents about their party membership. The largest segment of respondents (43%) said they were independent, while Republicans and Democrats made up 27% each.

“62% of Americans now want a third party, which is very high because they see leaders not getting things done,” Yang, who chairs the Forward party, told CNN.

“The new party will start with a budget of $5 million, and it has donors and seekers for membership from the political groups to which its founders belong, their number is estimated at hundreds of thousands,” Yang indicated.

“The idea was to give voters a credible, viable patriotic third party,” said Forward co-founder Miles Taylor, a former Trump Homeland Security Department official.

Taylor acknowledged that third parties have failed in the past, but said: “The fundamentals have changed. When third parties have emerged in the past, they have been largely within a system where the American people do not demand an alternative. The difference is that we're seeing a historic number of Americans saying they want one.”

Stuart Rothenberg, a veteran non-partisan political analyst, points out that third-party presidential candidates such as John Anderson in 1980, and Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 have come under attack, failing to build a genuine third party that has become a factor in national politics.

It is noteworthy that no third-party candidate has won a presidential election in the modern bipartisan era. The last third-party candidate to win any state in the presidential election was George Wallace, who won five votes in the 1968 election.

It is not yet clear how the new party might affect the electoral prospects of either party, Republican or Democrat, in a highly politically polarized country.

Conversely, many Democrats on Twitter expressed concerns that the new party might pull more votes away from Democrats, rather than Republicans, and end up helping Republicans in tight races.

Some pointed out that Ralph Nader of the Green Party took enough votes from Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000 to help Republican George W. Bush win the White House.

Political analysts questioned the possibility of the new party's success, given that it does not have a long partisan history like the Democratic and Republican parties, also does not have a close relationship and support from the American media, and does not enjoy institutional support.

In addition, its leaders will face significant challenges, such as failing to meet polling access criteria, due to debate access rules, and will likely be disqualified from participating in presidential debates.

Others also argue that it is unlikely that this party will have enough support to be a serious and influential political challenge, without the ability to address economic concerns, election mechanisms, and foreign policy, such as: threats to national security, cyber security, the Iranian file, terrorism, and the file of Russia and China.

 

A Two-Party System

The dominance of the two major parties throughout America's political history, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, made other parties fall to the margins of the political and social decision-making of American life.

It is noteworthy that there are three other parties in the American party system, but they are still unknown to American public opinion on the one hand, and therefore to world public opinion on the other hand.

These three parties are officially registered parties and have registered voters in these parties, namely: The Freedom Party, founded in 1971, has 440,000 registered voters in the current presidential elections, and it calls for keeping the United States away from conflicts.

In addition to the Constitutional Party, founded in 1992, it is concerned with constitutional abuses by various US administration officials, and there is also the Green Party, founded in 1984, and it is concerned with environmental and social justice issues.

According to observers, small parties will always remain on the sidelines of American politics, like bubbles that appear and disappear, and the two major parties will remain the dominant ones in the various affairs of American life.

Although they emerged from one party, the Republican Democratic Party at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they separated through two wings that differed within the same party, right-wing (Republican) and left-wing (Democratic).

The first president of the United States, George Washington, was not a member of any political party at the time of his election and throughout his presidency, and during his farewell speech at the time, he expressed the hope that political parties would not form for fear of conflict and stagnation.