Ex-Republicans and Democrats form Forward, a new centrist political party

(Image credit: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

published 28 July 2022

Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, and onetime Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang have joined with several dozen other political officials to start Forward, a new national political third party.

This centrist party will officially launch on Thursday, Reuters reports. Organizers say they think Forward will appeal to Americans who find the two-party system doesn't work for them. Their goal is to gain enough traction to be a viable alternative to the Democratic and Republican parties.

The two pillars of the party's platform are to "reinvigorate a fair, flourishing economy" and to "give Americans more choices in elections, more confidence in a government that works, and more say in our future," Reuters reports. Yang and Todd Whitman will be the initial co-chairs of the party, and a launch event will be held in Houston on Sept. 24. Then, party members will hit the road, stopping in two dozen cities to spread their message and platform.

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Forward doesn't have any specific policies yet. Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security official during the Trump administration, helped create Forward, and told Reuters while third parties have failed in the past, "the fundamentals have changed. When other third party movements have emerged in the past it's largely been inside a system where the American people aren't asking for an alternative. The difference here is we are seeing an historic number of Americans saying they want one."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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