Two of them are in the Senate: Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, both of whom caucus with the Democrats but remain apart from them. “Money is important in Canadian politics, but it is far more critical in American politics, and it’s the American parties that help raise the money.”Ī handful of contemporary American lawmakers run as Independents, but that doesn’t mean they are members of third parties. “It’s difficult for a third-party candidate to compete for reasons that don’t exist in Canada,” said Frédérick Gagnon, director of the Centre for United States Studies at University of Quebec in Montreal. That American presidential elections generally have been conducted between just two major, established parties is a fundamental difference between politics in the United States and Canada. “It will elect Donald Trump, and he should never be near the White House again.” “A third party of the kind these people are talking about has no chance – no matter who is their nominee – to win the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency,” Richard Gephardt, a former House of Representatives majority leader and two-time Democratic presidential candidate, said in an interview. Trump in important battleground states, resulting in returning Mr. Specifically, that its potential presence in the 2024 race could siphon more votes from Mr. That’s the worry that No Labels presents.ĭozens of former Republicans and Democrats form new third U.S. Though it cannot be proven, the presence of third-party candidates in presidential races arguably tipped the election to, respectively, Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton and George W. Though third parties have repeatedly failed, they have still had a substantial impact on several elections, including 1912 (when former president Theodore Roosevelt bolted the Republican Party and formed the Progressive Party, known informally as the Bull Moose Party) 1992 (when Ross Perot’s candidacy took 19 per cent of the vote) and 2000 (when Ralph Nader’s Green Party won 2.9 million votes). Manchin, who has often been the swing vote in the Senate and has flirted with his own presidential campaign, said, “We’re here to make sure the American people have an option.” Huntsman, a political figure with legitimate bipartisan bona fides: He was American ambassador to Beijing under Democratic president Barack Obama and ambassador to Moscow under GOP president Trump. “The common-sense majority in America has no voice right now,” said Mr. Anselm to discuss the advantages they believe a third-party campaign would present. The notion gained force in the Trump-Biden years, and this week, in Goffstown, N.H., Senator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, and Jon Huntsman, the former Republican governor of Utah, appeared at St.

Over the years, several important political figures urged automobile executive Lee Iacocca and General Colin Powell, among others, to mount such efforts. Movements to form a third party have been coursing through the underground swales of American politics for decades.

The objects of the skepticism in this case: the Democratic Party, which is almost two centuries old, and the Republican Party, which is nearly 170 years old. This year’s effort is called No Labels, and it has nothing to do with Naomi Klein’s No Logo campaign, though the two movements – one purely American, the other with Canadian roots – share the skepticism of established brands. No such drive has succeeded since 1860, when the (relatively) new Republican Party – it had been formed six years earlier – was the platform that elected Abraham Lincoln. Anselm College, the traditional host of White House hopefuls, and set forth the latest new-party effort in American politics. As Republican presidential candidates race around New Hampshire seeking support for the first primary of the 2024 political season – former vice-president Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina are here this week, with others on the way – a group of political figures met at St.

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