How to Build a Third Party (and Save American Democracy?)

Design created by Nicolas Biernacki

Article edited by Arya Kumar, Elizabeth Adams, Owen Andrews, and Sarah Ahmad

A third party that matches the Democratic and Republican duopoly in funding, ballot access, and permanence is the white whale of American politics. Yes, there have been parties other than the Democrats or Republicans who have won national elections—the Whigs, for example, were the Democratic Party’s main rival in the decades preceding the formation of the Republican Party, winning the 1840 and 1848 presidential elections. Yet, the Whigs are the last example of a nationally viable party that isn’t the Democrats or Republicans, and they too existed in a two-party system, just a Democrat-Whig one instead of a Democrat-Republican one. After the collapse of the Whigs, there have also been a few third-party or independent presidential candidates who have garnered significant support, most notably former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, segregationist Governor George Wallace of Alabama in 1968, and billionaire Ross Perot in 1992. Yet the candidacies of Roosevelt, Wallace, and Perot were not accompanied by nationally competitive parties; it was the candidates themselves who drove voters to the polls, with little down-ballot effect. In fact, Perot did not even run under a party in 1992, though he later founded the Reform Party of America, which typified the “big tent” trap that prospective third parties continuously fall into. "Big tent" parties, which have many different ideologies and groups, are inevitable in two-party systems but can be avoided in a multi-party system. Similarly, Congress has not had multiple representatives from any single third party since 1945. A viable alternative to the Democrats and Republicans must be able to win at all levels of government nationwide, and the necessity of such an alternative is glaring.

There are several ongoing movements to create a third major political party in the United States. One example is the America Party, founded by half-trillionaire and Donald Trump’s biggest 2024 donor, Elon Musk. Another is the Forward Party, which was founded by 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. While any effort to challenge the two major parties can help revitalize interest in American democracy, the America and Forward parties are severely lacking in critical aspects necessary to form a viable third party. While both contemporary alternatives have some visibility and financial resources, neither has a coherent ideology or platform. As the Forward Party’s former national press secretary Mary Anna Mancuso wrote in Politico, by not committing to policy stances, the party “is betting that what a party opposes is more important [than] what it stands for.” The America Party takes the noncommittal approach one step further and maintains a platform that is essentially just a collection of platitudes about “freedom” and “independence.” The most specific the America Party gets is promises to protect existing rights, such as the Second Amendment, and a few DOGE-inspired commitments to end “waste and graft.” Oh, and the America Party might not even ever get off the ground, as Musk has already lost interest in the endeavor. Clearly, if third parties in the last century-plus of American politics lacked longevity and ongoing attempts lack commitment to policy, then inspiration for a successful third party will have to come from abroad. 

Many European democracies have long had thriving multi-party systems, or systems where a single party rarely achieves an electoral majority and more than two parties can form governments through coalition. The English-speaking world’s insistence on the conventionality of a two-party system is an exception, not a rule. Of course, the U.S.’s form of democracy is uniquely prone to majoritarianism—so much so that James Madison first warned about “the tyranny of the majority" before the nation even had a president. The U.S. is so susceptible to majoritarianism because of two factors absent in multi-party European democracies: First, the nation directly elects its chief executive, the president, who consolidates power and assumes the roles of both head of state and head of government. Second, the nation has what political scientists call “weak” political parties, which naturally incentivize a few “big tent” parties over a greater number of more ideologically unified parties. Instead of being able to pick from a large number of parties with varying ideologies, ambitious politicians in the U.S. have to try to mold one of the existing major parties in response to ideological shifts. Seeking office through one of the two major parties also provides candidates with an existing voter base. What results from America’s political paralysis is an electorate voting based on vibes, charisma, and partisan affiliation. The Democrats and Republicans have a multitude of different ideologies within their ranks, and frequent bickering occurs on both sides of the aisle. Yet the American electorate also expresses dissatisfaction with the two-party status quo that has defined the republic’s existence. Americans are clearly ready to embrace a third party, and many at the very least think that a third major party would be good for our democracy.

Despite the many structural differences between American democracy and multi-party democracies, hope could still be on the horizon. The United Kingdom, like the U.S., has long had two major parties—the center-left Labour Party and the center-right Conservative Party. Early polling for the next UK general election, to occur no later than August 15, 2029, reveals a whiplash-inducing shift in the political landscape. The most recent YouGov poll shows far-right insurgency party Reform at 27%, the incumbent Labour Party at 19%, the Green Party on Labour’s left flank at 17%, and Britain’s long-standing "natural party of government," the Conservatives, at 17%. While a far-right party whose leader has been accused of spewing racist rhetoric leading the polls isn’t typically a cause of hope, it does show that traditional major parties can be viably challenged in a democracy similar to America’s. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, is another advanced democracy that has historically been dominated by two parties, but, over the years, the identities of those parties have changed in dramatic ways. The 1993 Canadian federal election saw the incumbent Progressive Conservative Party collapse from 156 seats to a meager two seats in Parliament. The defeat was so blistering for the Progressive Conservatives that they were forced to merge with a different party in 2003, forming the modern-day Conservative Party. Since 2015, Canadian politics have been dominated by the Liberal Party and the aforementioned new Conservative Party. As recently as 2011, however, another party landed in the top two, when the left-wing New Democratic Party finished well ahead of the Liberals. 
The opposite of a “big tent” party is one bound by a strong ideology and fundamental views shared across the whole operation—from party leadership to voters. The Reform and Green Parties in the UK and the New Democratic Party in Canada are deeply ideological, and American third parties that seek to emulate their success should take note. Any upstart party seeking to challenge the long-reigning titans of American politics should have a strong ideological bent and should not be in the mold of the mealy-mouthed Forward party of our time or Perot’s Reform party of yore.