WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THE MODERATE THIRD-PARTY MOVEMENT THIS CYCLE?

By: Bill King With No Labels abandoning its bid to run its “unity ticket” in 2024, the last hope for a moderate alternative to the duopoly of our incumbent parties for this election cycle vanished.  This cycle began with great excitement in the middle of the political spectrum.  e parties had careened so far toward the edges that it seemed a moderate alternative would finally emerge. In addition, to the No Labels e ort, Andrew Yang’s Forward Party merged with the SAM Party and the Renew America Movement to form a new party that could have been that moderate alternative. & But it was not to be. After spending millions on ballot access, No Labels was unable to  nd a credible candidate willing to run under its banner and the Forward Party has shrunk into irrelevance. With an election cycle that began with so much hope and enthusiasm for upsetting the duopoly, what went wrong? Fundamentally, these movements ignored history. We have only had one successful third party in our country’s history.  That was the founding of today’s Republican Party in the 1850s. At that time, the Democrat and Whig parties were the dominant parties. However, as the country grappled...