Leaders of the upstart Forward Party are collecting signatures as part of an effort to grow from minor status to major party.
DALLAS — Republicans have dominated Texas politics for decades now.
But another political party is now joining the Democrats in trying to break through that GOP wall.
Leaders of the Forward Party were recently in Tewas, fundraising and signing folks up for their cause.
“It’s hope for the hopeless and a home for the homeless — those people who don’t feel comfortable with either the Republican or Democratic Party,” Christine Todd Whitman told us on Y’all-itics.
Whitman is the former Republican Governor of New Jersey. And she was joined on this week’s episode of the podcast by Andrew Yang, who ran for president as a Democrat.
The two have joined together to form a new political party called the Forward Party, with Yang serving as founder and Whitman as his co-chair.
They hope others will see the virtue in their efforts.
They say the Forward Party aims to be an inclusive organization, and that it’d even be willing to support candidates from another party for office. Those folks, these leaders say, would be known as Forward Republicans or Forward Democrats. The only trick is they’d have to agree with the Forward Party’s principles.
“…which are pretty simple,” Whitman said. “Respect for the rule of law, uphold the Constitution, be willing to work across the aisle, and most importantly, be willing to change the way we choose our candidates. And that means working for open primaries and ranked choice voting so that every vote counts.”
That part is big to the Forward Party — changing how we vote.
One of the party’s main goals is to push for ranked choice voting, where voters rank their candidates in order from first to last. They’re also pushing for non-partisan, “open” primaries.
Supporters say both of these changes changes would force candidates to appeal to all voters instead of just a narrow base.
The Forward Party also wants independent commissions to handle redistricting, instead of allowing politicians to draw new voting maps that favor their party.
First, though, the party must make the leap from a minor party to major party status. Here in Texas, that will take more than 83,000 signatures and lots of dollars.
“We have a budget for the Texas infrastructure rollout you’re describing,” Yang told us. “The budget is about $1.5 million to get major party status.”
For Yang, who started the Forward Party after his 2020 presidential run, failure to establish a viable third-party alternative is not an option. He says politics isn’t working, and that the two-party system is not designed to deliver solutions or a better way of life.
“Things are not working — because the system has been rigged to exclude you,” Yang says on Y’all-itics. “We are going to unrig it as fast as we can. Now, unrigging it is not fast. It’s not cheap. It’s not easy.”
Also on the podcast, Yang explains why he felt so despondent about American politics after coming off the presidential campaign trail, and why that led him to challenge the two-party system. He and Whitman also take a dive deep into their strategy to turn Forward into a party that can impact voters and the system. So listen to, or watch, this entire episode of Y’all-itics. Cheers!