Looking at the “No Kings” rallies across the country, along with the very vocal crowds at the Army’s 250th anniversary parade and President Donald Trump’s birthday celebration, you might wonder why some smart political entrepreneur can’t organize all that energy into a new political party.
No doubt the overwhelming majority of the “No Kings” demonstrators voted for Kamala Harris in November and probably supported other Democrats. That didn’t work out real well in most states, so maybe it’s time for something new.
The public demand is clearly there. Polls show widespread dissatisfaction with Republicans and Democrats. As politicians begin announcing their 2026 candidacies, they always promise “change” and “new ideas,” ranging from an amicable departure from the old way of doing things to a radical revolution against the status quo.
Maybe we need the right leader to mobilize public sentiment.
Henry Ford saw the possibility of the average working family having a car, so he built one. Steve Jobs, and a few like him, decided you could have a computer on your desk rather than a big central processing unit at your office. Hugh Hefner figured out that guys didn’t want to feel like lecherous old goats, so he gave an air of pseudo-sophistication to peeping at nudes for 50 cents a month.
If there’s a market for something between Trump’s MAGA Republicans and the “woke” Democrats of Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, why can’t somebody corral all that leftover zeitgeist we saw with “No Kings?”
Well, Florida is about to find out if a novel, new approach to old, embedded political problems can catch on. (Spoiler alert: Probably not.)
Attorney John Morgan, the former Democratic mega-donor who bankrolled successful campaigns for medical marijuana and a higher minimum wage, said he’ll form a third party. On the national level, Elon Musk said the country badly needs one, although he didn’t set about marketing a new political brand.
State Sen. Jason Pizzo, who quit his role as Senate Democratic leader, said he will run for governor with no team label. That’s not the same as a third party, but just as futile.
Florida voter registration figures showed 13,616,653 people registered to vote in Florida at the end of May. That included 5,522,017 Republicans and 4,211,158 Democrats. There were 3,456,755 voters, like Pizzo, signed up with “no party affiliation” and 426,723 members of 14 different minor parties, such as the Constitution Party, Green Party, No Labels, Reform Party and something called the Coalition With a Purpose.
There’s nothing stopping Morgan or Musk—or you and me—from filling out a form and registering a new party. But that’s kind of like going into the theme park business next-door to Disney. Don’t get your hopes up.
First, election laws are rigged to make it hard to get a new party on the ballot. Go ahead and appeal to every disgruntled voter in Florida, you’re not going to gruntle them if you’re not on the ballot.
Second, money. Very rich guys like Morgan and Musk can start things, but the people who write the big checks don’t want something new. They got rich, and stayed that way, in the existing system, and they’re not going to invest in a start-up.
Third, history matters. Charlie Crist had been a state senator, education commissioner, attorney general and governor—all as a Republican—but when he ran as an independent for the U.S. Senate, Marco Rubio beat him easily in 2010. Any third-party candidate or independent running next year won’t have the name identification Crist had.
You’d have to go back more than a century to Sidney Catts, who won in 1916, to find a governor who wasn’t a Democrat or Republican. Catts was rooked out of the Democratic nomination and ran on the Prohibition Party ticket, which was feasible back then. We haven’t heard much from the “Drys” lately.
A backlash against changing times is no foundation for a new party, as Strom Thurmond showed in 1948 and George Wallace proved again 20 years later. A protest vote for Ross Perot helped Bill Clinton win the White House in 1992, but his Reform Party faded fast.
There’s no reason to think another new party would fare any better.
Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at wrcott43@aol.com.
