A third party rarely sees
success in American politics.
But a new party has formed aimed at
uniting Republicans and Democrats
who are exhausted by extremism.
And sites are set on Texas.
We sat down with former Democratic
candidate for president Andrew Yang,
the Co chair of the Forward Party.
Thank you so much for
being with us this morning.
It's good to see you in person.
Oh, it's great to be here.
Welcome to Texas.
Yeah, thank you. And.
Explain why you're here.
Why does Texas matter
to the forward party?
Oh my gosh, Texas is core to the
forward party because there are
so many folks here that don't
want to move left or right.
They want to move forward,
and they're being suppressed by
a political system that's really
blanking out a lot of people's voices
and what they want for the future.
How are you going to change that?
Well, what we're going to do is
we're going to provide an option for
Texans in all parts of the state.
In the 43% of race that are
uncontested or uncompetitive,
it turns out a majority of the
races in the state are nonpartisan.
So you can run as a forward party member
or in some cases a Democrat or Republican,
and we'll get behind you as long
as you're not about the extremism.
Is it pie in the sky to think that
someone can get elected in this
state who doesn't have an R or
a D and is not appealing to the
extremes on both of those sides?
Well, there's an enormous opportunity
here and we're seeing it on the ground.
We we've already had hundreds,
thousands of people sign up for
Forward Party Texas and the growth
is happening every single day.
So the pie in the sky is really
imagining that you can have a
dysfunctional political system and not
have people rise up for an alternative.
How are you going to do this?
Because right now you're just a minor party.
How do you elevate yourselves to
actually get the stature to where
people look at you and think,
oh, we can do this, This
is true. So to get to major
party status here in Texas,
we need 83,000 registrants.
We're well on our way.
And that's one reason I'm here over
this week is to get people to sign up.
How do you dismantle something
that's been in place for so long?
I know that you want to talk
about ranked choice voting,
nonpartisan primaries, that's,
But those two things are just, you know.
So different from how we do
the things here in Texas,
how do you begin to dismantle that?
Well, if you look at the reality
on the ground, let's say in a lot
of the rural parts of the state
and the Republican led areas,
43% of those races haven't even
had a challenger for a while.
So and I'm going to tell it like it is,
it's not like Democrats are showing
up there being like we're going to
make a difference here in this area.
They've given up on those areas.
So the way you change this is
you go to those areas and say.
Hey, here's a person who's running.
They're running as forward party and
no one knows what the heck that means.
So they'll have to look at it and
say what does this person stand for?
And they'll like what they hear and say.
This is actually what I want as opposed
to this out of touch legislator or I
actually barely know who they are and
they're not presence in the community
many people have looked at.
Texas is almost just like a ATM to
fund candidates on both parties,
Republicans and Democrats.
Clearly it's going to take a lot
of money to compete with that.
How do you do that?
Is funding coming in?
Are you seeing donors or is that part
of the strategy moving forward? We've
already raised, you know,
like let's call it like thousands,
10s of thousands, even hundreds of
thousands of dollars here in Texas
because the appetite is so high.
Most people here know that it's
not working the way it is and
they want an alternative and
we're just going to grow and grow
most importantly in terms of.
People and registrants and elected officials,
but also monetarily,
How concerned are you about just
the current status of politics,
particularly in Texas but across
the country, because there is
such deep divisiveness. It's
one reason why our mission at Forward
is so important is that we can sense
the polarization and the anger and
the hostility just rising and rising,
and we need to tamp it down and
give people what they actually want,
which is common sense leaders.
Who want to solve problems and make
things better for us and our families.
Is there going to be a 2024 forward
candidate running for president?
Well, we we might support someone, but we
ourselves are focused at the local level.
Although the goal in 2024 is to have
dozens of people who could have dump D
or in our next their name or forward
show up and be on school board,
city council's county executives,
but also even at the state legislature.
Level. Because if you had, let's say,
10% of the State House that was forward,
then you could reduce the extremism and make
it so that people had to work together.
Andrew Yang, thank you for your
time this morning. Thank you.
Great to be here.
This week's Yala Ticks podcast
features more from Yang and his
fellow Forward Party Co chair,
former New Jersey Governor
Christine Todd Whitman.
She is a Republican.
While you are downloading this episode,
be sure to subscribe.
You can find Yala ticks
wherever you get your podcasts.