Creating a progressive third party, part 2: The plan
In our last post, we talked about strategies progressives could use to take over the Democratic Party. We might find that they work, and we don’t have to start another party to reach our political goals. Or, we might find that what we can achieve within the party is just not enough. Or, the establishment Democrats might throw us out of the party.
If we decide to build our own party, we need a plan to maximize what works for us, and minimize what works against us, both to build the party and to work across the spectrum to create a better American political system. We can’t succeed at building any party without serious electoral reform.
Here are several situations coming up that will be inflection points. Let’s consider the best courses of action around them.
TIMELINE
Now-Nov 2026: Progressives get elected in midterms | Jan 2027: Dems take one or both houses of Congress | Early 2027-Summer 2028: Launch of Dem agenda in Congress/states, Presidential Primary | Aug-Nov 2028: Presidential General Election | 2028-2032: Census-Reapportionment-Redistricting |
MAXIMIZING WHAT WORKS FOR US
Key issues like AI/data centers and corruption are uniting people from left and right against the establishment.
The Wall Street Journal, in a recent story called “Bernie, AOC and Bannon Can Agree on One Thing: the Fight Against Data Centers,” points out that ads against data centers are running in races from Senate and Governor all the way down to “a county-commissioner primary in Colorado.” More importantly, such ads are running on behalf of both Democrats and Republicans. Such hot-button issues pulling people away from the establishment on both sides really weakens it, and helps build momentum for breakaway movements.
Growing support for independent candidates, electoral reform, and developing third parties.
Progressives will have opportunities to start creating the conditions for successful "third parties" in Washington and in the states from now through 2028.
2026: We need to put it all out on the field to support progressive, socialist and independent candidates, who can help lay the groundwork for future third parties’ power base.
2027: If Democrats gain control in Congress and states, we can build on that. DSA, progressives, moderate allies, electoral reform groups and even some right-wing change agents like Tucker Carlson can push for electoral reform legislation and initiatives. These policies are generally very popular!
We should be ready with some key 2027 priorities for the new Congress and for state legislatures, many of whom only meet in the first half of the year.
banning or limiting dark money
ranked choice voting/open primaries
public campaign finance
ballot access
National Popular Vote
Fair maps (states only)
Ultimately, we need proportional representation. But we need to get a lot stronger before we can really take that battle on.
Early 2027-Summer 2028: We should make a big push for candidates to take a “clean money” pledge and tie it to key policy planks like universal health care, action against monopolies and price gouging, raising wages, anti-AI and data centers, supporting unions, and climate action. People across the political spectrum totally get why this matters.
Early 2027-Summer 2028: We should push the Dems to run a primary and convention process that takes the people’s will into account. Let’s say DSA’sPresidential candidate does well, and/or WFP is able to help make a progressive candidate a real contender.
Aug-Nov 2028: General Election: We’d have an opportunity to show them how we can win the election by working together and taking some big policy swings. Or, if it’s 2024 all over again and we can’t even get a speaker on Gaza at the convention, it could create momentum and support for us to create or spin off new parties sooner rather than later.
Progressives and DSA are winning elections
and building a mass base
2027-2028: We need to build on our success with a strategic growth plan. We must expand further in places and among people where we’re already strong, and establish beachheads where there is potential growth, especially in red areas and where election laws are helpful.
DSA is on this with their Office Matching Funds program. They’ve helped launch new offices in 20 markets this year, including Birmingham AL, Tampa, Cleveland, Chicago and LA, and are expanding the program.
To really scale up, we’ll need more cooperation and coordination between DSA and progressive elected officials and staff, organization allies, and rank and file. We’ll need more focus on goals, metrics, and fundraising.
It looks to me like there will be 8-10 DSA or DSA-endorsed members in the House come January, with at least a dozen strong progressives alongside. The 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) includes Chair Greg Casar and Vice Chair Ilhan Omar, but also many people you wouldn’t really call progressive. A 20 to 25-person group is a great start, but we need a much bigger bloc to get a major policy initiative through the House, much less the Senate.
MINIMIZING WHAT
WORKS AGAINST US
The Democratic establishment is panicking about the progressive/socialist threat to their power.
Clinton-era Democratic strategist James Carville doesn’t mince words, saying it’s “time for Democrats to talk the S-word: schism.”
Congressional leaders are keeping progressives off important committees, for example, naming AIPAC reps Wesley Bell and Debbie Wasserman-
Schultz to the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Some Democrats are trying to separate progressives from DSA by highlighting the more extreme parts of the DSA national platform.
DSA should promote a clear vision of democratic socialism that works for average Americans, rather than letting others define them as lunatics and Communists. They will have to think about whether the extreme platform has outlived its usefulness.
Progressives and socialists do have allies among more moderate Democrats as well, like Sen. Chris Murphy, who says “this version of capitalism isn’t working” and “we need bigger ideas.” We need to work more closely with Chris and others to push back on those who want to silence us.
We have to find out if there’s a version of the Democratic Party that we could build with allies and feel good about. Even if there isn’t, having these relationships could help us fix the system and have a future as a “third party.”
The 2030 Census could take significant political power away from “blue” states.
A terrific explainer of what’s at stake here comes from Votebeat, from whence I have excerpted the following info.
The census is meant partly to determine how many congressional representatives each state gets. The Constitution says that the census is to count “the whole number of persons in each State.” As courts have interpreted this, it means everyone is counted, regardless of their age, immigration or citizenship status, or eligibility to vote.
Republicans are fighting to add a “citizenship question” to the Census, and furthermore, to count ONLY American citizens when they use Census data to apportion Congressional seats and draw political districts, possibly including state level districts.
If noncitizens were to be excluded, states estimated to have large populations of noncitizens — a red and blue mix that includes Texas, California, New Jersey, Florida, and New York — would lose House seats and electoral votes, or gain fewer than they would have otherwise. Those 5 states together represent more than a third of the population. It wouldn't necessarily benefit the GOP as much as they think. But it's hard to say exactly what would happen.
Also, census data affects how trillions of dollars in Federal funding are allocated to states to improve health, housing, education, and other community services.
The Supreme Court may rule soon on the citizenship question. The battle over this whole matter is on now and will continue for the next few years.
Americans have never believed that “third parties” could really work, as much as they hate the two-party system.
To make them believers, we would have to do things differently than they’ve ever been done, and it would take time and money.
First, we need to show people that "third parties” DO work, all over the world. A recent story in Politico noted that “while cynicism about politics is widespread and persistent [in both the US and UK], British voters, with an array of political parties across the ideological spectrum, are willing to abandon their party in search of an alternative…but disaffected Trump voters have no real choice.”
We need a marketing campaign that makes it real. Most electoral reform groups are afraid to get too political, and their efforts often come off overly technical and emotionally flat.
I would get Canadians and expats from Europe and Asia - including celebrities and comedians? - to explain what's wrong with our system, and how and why they get more representation and better outcomes, like universal health care and free college, with their systems. John Oliver has done that to great effect.
Alternatives to the two-party system aren’t generally taught in American schools, even in political science programs, so we desperately need an educational campaign.
RCV and ballot access reform are THE most helpful reforms for third parties. RCV is because it eliminates spoilers. You can vote for your third-party candidate without hurting the "mainstream" Democrat who would be preferable to the GOP. Ballot access is because it would allow third-party candidates to get on the ballot without the extra expense and effort that they have now.
But we have to remember that we can’t change the system without buy-in across the political spectrum. Conservatives and moderates also feel unrepresented, and history shows that electoral reform is won only with broad coalitions.
Often it seems like radical change breaks out overnight. But the groundwork was always being laid long before. If general conditions continue to deteriorate, the time for “third parties” could come sooner than you think. We must be ready.
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