A Viable Third Party Is Coming, and It’s Starting With a New Jersey Lawsuit.
By Tom Malinowski
Mr. Malinowski is seeking a third term as a representative in the House for New Jersey.
On June 7, I won the Democratic Party primary in New Jersey’s Seventh Congressional District, on my way to what I hope will be my third term in the House. The same day, I also accepted the nomination of the new Moderate Party, formed substantially by state Republicans fed up with the extremism of a party led by Donald Trump.
The Moderate Party is an experiment: an alliance between Democrats of all stripes, independents and moderate Republicans hoping to win an election while pursuing a reform to the election laws that could empower swing voters to save our democracy from toxic polarization.
Third-party candidates have long been viewed as spoilers in American politics, for good reason. Ralph Nader and Jill Stein had no chance of winning the presidency yet drew enough votes from Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 to help tip those elections to Republicans. On the right, libertarian candidates tend to draw votes away from Republicans.
It doesn’t have to be that way. In several states, including New York and Connecticut, third parties can channel their energy into endorsing and placing on the ballot candidates who also run as Democrats or Republicans, giving their members the option to cast tactical votes for a major party candidate under a banner that better reflects their values. This is known as fusion voting, in which two parties fuse and form a coalition to support the same candidate.'>>>
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/06/opinion/moderate-party-new-jersey.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
