Three, it’s a magic number

Dozens of former Republican and Democratic lawmakers are creating a new national political party called the Forward Party, according to a Reuters report published late Wednesday.

🗳 A deeper dive… The new party will initially be led by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and former New Jersey Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

• No stated policy goals have been released yet, but founding members told Reuters the Forward Party’s goal is to provide a third centrist option to the current two-party system, citing a Gallup poll last year that showed a record 62% of US voters believe a third party is needed.

✋ Yes, but: Posing a major challenge is far easier said than done – throughout American history, no third party has ever won a presidential election or majority in either chamber of Congress.

Experts attribute this to a couple main reasons:

• Federal law mandates that all members of Congress are elected from single-member districts, meaning only one person – and one party – represents any single voting district (which naturally resolves into a two-party system, per Duverger's law).
• Democrat and GOP-controlled state legislatures have given themselves automatic pathways to being on the ballot each election, while imposing relatively difficult requirements for all other parties. This entrenchment also makes it difficult for third-party candidates to be admitted into presidential debates, and to drum up enough support to secure the necessary 270 electoral votes.

👀 Looking ahead… Forward Party leaders announced plans to hold a series of events in two dozen major US cities starting Sept. 24, with their first national convention taking place next summer.

+Flash poll: Do you think America needs a third major political party?

Yes

No

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