The Quiet Rise of the Forward Party

On the surface, Steve Morris and Alvarys Santana don't seem to have much in common. He's a white man and a Republican. She's a Hispanic woman and a Democrat. He's a veteran of several election campaigns; she's a novice running for public office for the first time. Yet they share a common affiliation that made a difference in a nonpartisan November 4 election in Concord, North Carolina: Both won separate, hotly contested races after being endorsed by the Forward Party. 

photo courtesy of the Forward Party

If you are confused about how one political party could endorse candidates from two other parties in a nonpartisan local election, then you've not heard much of the Forward Party, the closest thing America has to an organized political center of gravity that promotes moderate politics.

Founded in July 2022 by seasoned political professionals, the Forward Party exists to give voters an option between the extremes that make American elections resemble partisan mudslinging rather than the more measured political campaigns of yesteryear.

"A lot of the people I talk with say the regular political parties on the local level are more to the extreme, the extreme right or the extreme left," says Mayor-elect Morris, addressing the role of the Forward Party in the Concord election. "I think the vast majority of people are somewhere in the middle, and sometimes they get excluded. And the Forward Party gives them somewhere to land where they feel more comfortable."

Santana, who won a seat on the Concord council, agrees: "The Forward Party definitely helped. People are tired of partisan division. So, having someone look at a race and say, 'but wait, there's another option,' that definitely opened up the space for people to even listen to a candidate like me."  Morris's victory was close; Santana, running as a Democratic Forwardist, won with 42.25 percent of the vote compared to 28.7 percent for her nearest rival in a four-candidate race for a council seat in Concord, a bedroom suburb just outside of Charlotte, the state's largest city.

Traditionally, analysts view third parties in American politics as spoilers who don't have much chance of winning. The media generally ignores third-party candidates, too. Typically, they tip the scales in favor of one party or another in close political contests, such as when Ralph Nader ran in 2000 as the Green Party candidate and won enough votes in Florida to hand George W. Bush the White House. But the Forward Party might be poised to ride the winds of change, given widespread public frustration with a hyper-partisan political atmosphere in which Congress doesn't even meet for part of the year to avoid giving its opponents a vote on controversial legislation.

The Forwards Party aims to change the equation, says former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, a co-founder of the Forward Party. “I've been thinking about this for a while,” says Whitman, who blasts both parties in the current system in which she was once a major player.

"You try to support the centrist, you know, the people who are willing to solve problems. But that's impossible to do within the system as it exists today. The Republican and Democratic parties are just too strong. They have things set up just the way they want. You know, if any given year, there's no contest in seventy percent of (federal, state, and local) offices up for election. There's no contest! There's only one candidate. And that's just not right. The American people, everybody, should have a choice. Five to ten percent of those offices are never filled. And we think every office should be filled. So, we are providing a choice."

In 2022, Whitman joined forces with Andrew Yang, the former Democratic presidential candidate who had founded the Forward Party after his unsuccessful 2020 run for the Democratic nomination. Soon, others like Whitman, who also led the Environmental Protection Agency under President George W. Bush, helped engineer a merger of several organizations disgusted with the political status quo into what is now an expanded Forward Party with a different approach.

The Forward party operates as a fusion party that focuses on political reforms rather than traditional left-right policy positions. Its core strategy involves supporting candidates across party lines who sign a pledge to embrace its reform agenda. A politician seeking office can run as a Forward Party candidate, or a Democrat or Republican Forwardist, as long as they sign a pledge to support the party's reform agenda, which includes term limits, campaign finance reform, open primaries, instant run-off elections, and an end to gerrymandering, the system incumbent parties use to rig elections and guarantee victory. To win the Forward Party's support, a candidate must sign a pledge to back its reform agenda.

Christine Todd Whitman says the party's founders designed it to focus on local elections first to build a durable party structure that will last after the votes are counted.

"Most of the third parties that people think about are presidential runs about one person or one set of issues," she says, "they don't build any infrastructure beneath them, and once an election is over, it all goes away. Everything. All of that they'd built up. There's no there -- there. We're not doing that. We're starting from the ground up. We are starting in places and building parties that are getting recognized around the country, and that means we are going to be there for the long run." 

The election in Concord exemplifies the Forward approach. Candidates seeking the party's approval submitted to interviews with Forward officials, who questioned them about their policy positions. Once they earned the Forward imprimatur, volunteers with campaign experience helped the local candidates learn campaign basics, such as setting up proper bank accounts, hiring the right attorney, assembling donor lists, and canvassing.

The Forward party backed only two of many candidates in the nonpartisan Concord election: Santana, a known Democrat, and Morris, a Republican who had angered GOP stalwarts by refusing to endorse the party's candidate for governor in a prior election.

"The Forward party supported both of us," Santana said, even though we were from far different political backgrounds. Nevertheless, they had both signed the Forward Party pledge. "I can tell you across parties here people were very upset because they saw the same canvassers working for Steve and me," she says, "and I told them there wasn't anything I could do about that."

Santana says Forward party volunteers located households with registered Democrats, Republicans, or both.  "In those households where we had multiple individuals, we just spoke about the Forward Party." She said the party had provided them with campaign materials about the issues that mattered to Democrats and Republicans alike. "We could say, 'I'm not asking you to pick a party.  I'm just asking you to listen to what the Forward Party is about. And that eased our way into conversations with people who would never have spoken to us because of traditional Democratic and Republican affiliations. Santana says she emphasized "people over party" and that "the Forward Party, I hate to keep saying this, but it offers voters a way forward". At the start of her campaign, she was the underdog. But she won and credits the Forward Party for her large margin of victory.

Significantly, turnout more than doubled from the previous local election, and Mayor-elect Morris, a lifelong Republican, says he thinks it's time for voters to have a third-party option. "I think it would be very beneficial. There are so many people who feel excluded from our current two-party system, and this gives them a place where they can feel more comfortable."

Despite victories in places like Concord, the Forward Party faces significant challenges.

"I have known for a long time that it will be tough to change all of this without true electoral reform," says Patrick Newton, who heads the Forward Party efforts in North Carolina. Newton says it's more complicated to form a new party in North Carolina than in other states. "We need to secure about 15,000 signatures, which doesn't sound that bad until you actually get involved in the work of organizing volunteers, assuming you can find enough, and meeting the requirements of the Board of Elections (BOE).

Left to right: Patrick Newton of the Forward Party, Morrisville Councilman Steve Rao, and pastor Andrew Kessell of Rolesville. Photo by James O’Shea.

Newton says the signatures the party submits must be pen to paper. "We have to walk up to strangers with a clipboard in our hand and ask them if they will take a pen and fill out our petition," he says. "Each signature also must be submitted to the BOE of the county in which the particular voter registers. Again, on the surface, that seems to make sense, but, in reality, it simply creates more administrative work for our all-volunteer organization and allows for more inadvertent mistakes."

Democrats and Republicans don't want a viable third choice for voters, he says: "That is why they make it harder for the Forward Party or any other group to get out candidates on the ballot."  

Whitman says the party now has 53 currently serving public officials who are Forward Party candidates or Forward-affiliated in nine states, and that they are still receiving candidates who want the Forward imprimatur. She says the Forward Party has endorsed Senator John Curtis, a moderate Republican from Utah. Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat, has signed the Forward Party pledge. He faces a tough race in the midterm congressional elections after being gerrymandered into a more Republican-leaning district. The goal, she says, is to be on a ballot as a recognized party in 35 states by 2028, which would give the party national and Federal Election Commission recognition, a status that would make fundraising much easier.  

Whitman says the party targets voters unhappy with the existing system – voters who want people in office who get things done. Younger voters are a key target. In 2024, Gen Z and Millennial voters outnumbered baby boomer voters for the first time. Moreover, independent voters who don't identify with either traditional party now make up nearly 50 percent of voters. Independents also tend to be younger Americans who are unhappy with the perceived corruption of the two-party system and who desire more diverse viewpoints.

To spread the word about the party, Newton and other volunteers man booths at local events, such as a recent craft fair in a Raleigh suburb, educating potential voters about the Forward Party and its goals. One voter, Andrew Kessell, a senior pastor of the Journey Church in Rolesville, NC, said he had heard about the party and came to the fair to learn more.

"I am looking for a party in the middle," he says. "I feel the Republicans are appealing to their fringe, and the Democrats are appealing to their fringe. I want to get back to normal. I want a party that focuses on people. I talked to the Forward party representative. They are principled. They know what they are about, and they don't try to hide it. I want someone who represents all of us and talks about the issues that affect all of us."

Adds Newton: “If there was ever a moment for something like this, it's now."

–James O’Shea

James O’Shea is an award-winning American journalist and author. He is the past editor-in-chief of The Los Angeles Times, former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, and chairman of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks. He is the author of three books, including The Deal from Hell, a compelling narrative about the collapse of the American newspaper industry. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.