Despite some moderate Republicans’ dislike of Donald Trump, experts have told Newsweek that it is unlikely that they will form a new party in protest because of the trappings of the two-party system.
Last week, Trump was named the GOP’s presumptive 2024 presidential nominee after securing enough delegates across multiple primaries. Meanwhile, his daughter-in-law Lara Trump was elected as co-chair of the Republican National Committee, alongside Trump ally Michael Whatley, showing the MAGA movement has well and truly sunk its teeth into the Republican Party.
Last week, Lara Trump told Real America’s Voice that people who don’t support Donald Trump are “welcome to leave” the party.
MAGA’s victory has not quelled anti-Trump dissent and infighting within the party, and a number of moderate Republicans and supporters of Nikki Haley, who ran against the former president in the primaries, have indicated they would never vote for Trump.
This week, Trump faced more coordinated protest when the PAC Republican Voters Against Trump spent $50 million on 100 videos recorded by anti-Trump Republicans explaining why they no longer support him.
Newsweek reached out to Republican Voters Against Trump via email for comment.
Meanwhile Ken Buck, a Colorado congressman, suddenly resigned last Tuesday, leaving his seat vacant from next week and shrinking the Republicans‘ slim majority in the House to 218 over 213. Upon resigning, Buck teased that there may be more Republican resignations in the House of Representatives in the near future.
Regardless, moderates will likely stop short of forming their own party in their battle against Trump, according to experts.
Thomas Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, said forming a new party would be “political suicide.”
“Trump has remade the GOP thoroughly in his own image,” Gift told Newsweek.
“While some ‘establishment’ Republicans would like to see the party break from their leader, it’s still a small set who couldn’t command anything remotely like a governing majority.
“American politics—by dint of its single-member districts and first-past-the-post voting—naturally gravitates toward two parties. For that reason, Republicans who wanted to form their own party would be on a political suicide mission. It wouldn’t work. The only way is to reform from within,” he said.
A third-party or independent candidate has never won a U.S. presidential election.
But in October 2023, Gallup found that 63 percent of U.S. adults now agree that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the people that “a third major party is needed.”
In February, Trump’s ex-chief of Staff, Mick Mulvaney, published an opinion piece for The Hill pleading for a “viable” third-party candidate in the 2024 presidential election.
In the 2024 election, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West are running as independents, and Jill Stein is running as a Green Party candidate. The political organization No Labels has no current candidate.
Mark Shanahan, an associate professor in politics at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom, agreed that “the U.S. is pretty much baked-in to a two-party system” making it unlikely for a third party to arise.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“However bad the situation has been in the major parties historically, attempts to forge a third way have failed,” he told Newsweek. “Also, one has to remember that there has always been an overlap between the parties, with the left fringe of the GOP and right fringe of the Democrats being largely indistinguishable.
“Some centrist Republicans may seek a port in a storm among the Democrats but many are hoping for the fervency of Trumpism to burn out at the 2024 election. However, it is naive to say that Main Street Republicans will waltz back into the key positions if Trump loses.
“Trump owes his position to a concerted shift to the right that started with the Tea Party insurgence. Many of those people are still active. If Biden is re-elected, there will be a fight for the soul of the GOP, and which side wins will be down to the fundamental strength of ‘Trumpism’ denuded of its figurehead. A different GOP may emerge, but the two-party system remains extremely stubborn.”
Thomas Whalen also told Newsweek that forming a new party was “highly unlikely.”
“For now, they’ll probably just hold their noses and hope Trump and the MAGA movement implode in the fall,” he said. “They’ll kick and scream some, but they’ll toe the party line for the most part when everything is said and done.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.