(NewsNation) — The Forward Party, co-led by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, is partnering with another third party in California in hopes of officially being recognized by the state.
Yang’s Forward Party announced Thursday it is forming a coalition with the Common Sense Party, founded in 2019 by former Congressman Tom Campbell, to get the roughly 73,000 registered voters required by California to be recognized as an official political party.
“Forward Party members in California will now register for the Common Sense Party, joining the already nearly 30k registered Common Sense Party voters,” Forward Party said in a news release. “Volunteers across the state will be able to work together at the grassroots level, leading through our shared values of cooperation and problem solving.”
Yang, who dropped out of the 2020 presidential race in February of that year, said Thursday on NewsNation’s “CUOMO” that the new partnership will give voters in California a political choice.
“We know right now California is a one-party state, and that’s true in about three-quarters of the states around the country,” Yang said. “We have a pretend two-party system. In most of the country, including New York City, it’s essentially a one-party system, which isn’t good for anyone.”
Yang has been a vocal advocate for ranked-choice voting and earlier this week was in South Carolina for a rally at the statehouse. In ranked-choice voting, also known as an instant runoff, voters rank candidates in order of preference, which can then be used to determine a winner if no candidate receives 50% of the vote in the first round.
This happened in Alaska during the November midterms, when Democrat Mary Peltola beat Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich. It was the first election with ranked-choice voting following a referendum in 2020, but now some want to reverse course.
A signature drive has begun to go back to the traditional election, Alaska Public Media reported. The sponsor of the petition said the system forced candidates to hold their tongues to avoid rankling support of their opponents.
Proponents say it can curb extremism and makes candidates work for every single vote. As Yang puts it, ranked-choice voting “weakens the party machinery.”
“Right now they bully you and say ‘you have to vote for this person because if you vote for that person you’re gonna mess it up, you’re gonna spoil it,'” Yang said. “Ranked choice gets rid of all that nonsense and lets us vote for whoever we want.”