In an effort to win over what they refer to as the “moderate, common-sense majority,” a group of former Republican and Democratic politicians are launching a new political party called Forward.
In an opinion piece that appeared in the Washington Post on Wednesday, David Jolly, Christine Todd Whitman, and Andrew Yang wrote that “political extremism is tearing our nation apart, and the two major parties have failed to address the situation.” “By appealing to the margins, today’s obsolete parties have failed. The majority of Americans believe they aren’t represented as a result.”
Jolly is a former Florida Republican representative, Whitman was a former Republican governor of New Jersey, and Yang was a former Democratic candidate for president and mayor of New York. The new party, whose launch was originally reported by Reuters, will be the product of the three merging their own political organizations.
The group lists a number of subjects that could benefit from a moderate stance, including abortion, climate change, and weapons. The new party will also support open primaries, ranked-choice voting, the elimination of gerrymandering, and protection of voting rights on a national level.
In a joint appearance with Whitman on “New Day” on Thursday, Yang stated that “62 percent of Americans now want a third party, a record high, because they can see that our leaders aren’t getting it done.” “In addition, the majority of Americans genuinely concur on controversial, even disputed, policy objectives. There is a reasonable coalition position on all of the controversial topics of the day, including the most divisive ones like abortion and guns.”
According to the Post op-ed, Forward is preparing a national convention for next summer and will soon apply for ballot status to field candidates in 2024.
In a press release, the party said that it will start “Using the combined national network of the three groups, a national building tour will be conducted this autumn to gather feedback from voters and set the framework for increased state-by-state party registration and ballot access. ” It wants to be acknowledged by the law “By the end of 2022, in 15 states; in double that number by 2023; and in practically all states by the end of 2024. “
The news release states that although Forward won’t be running any candidates of its own in the next midterm elections, it will “support select politicians in November who stand up for our democracy, even if they come from outside the new party.”
In their op-ed, Jolly, Whitman, and Yang acknowledged the historically glaring failure of third parties in the United States, stating that “most failed to take off, either because they were ideologically too restricted or the population was indifferent.” However, citing a Gallup survey from the previous year, they said that “voters are demanding for a new party today more than ever.”
This cycle, a few independent candidates have garnered widespread media attention. Evan McMullin, an anti-Trump conservative who ran for president in 2016, is taking against GOP Sen. Mike Lee in Utah with the support of the Democratic Party of the state. For the available US Senate seat in Missouri, John Wood, a former senior investigator for the House select committee looking into the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, is running as a “commonsense alternative” to the field of Republican and Democratic candidates. In Oregon, Betsy Johnson, a former state senator who defected from the Democratic Party last year, is a leading candidate for governor.