For the Forward Party, election night losses provide hope for the road ahead

In the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, just a few blocks from where American democracy was founded, the Forward Party held its national watch event, fittingly, at Revolution House.  

The party, created to revolutionize the political process by providing voters with an alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties, counts two Pennsylvania candidates among the 125 it is fielding in races across the country. One of those candidates, Eric Settle, who was running for attorney general, was in attendance and was clear-eyed about his chances, telling those assembled that he was “part of a 75-day startup that was about to close down in 15 minutes.”

In an interview, Settle, a Bryn Mawr-based attorney who is senior counsel at AmeriHealth Caritas and previously served as deputy general counsel to then-Gov. Tom Ridge, was sanguine about running so far behind the Republican and Democratic candidates, chalking it up to the growing pains of a party still trying to establish itself in the political world and in the public’s consciousness.

“There wasn’t a structure for me to travel around the commonwealth to say, ‘I’ll come speak at this dinner. I’ll come speak at that dinner,’” he said. “Whatever we did was kind of organic. It’s a challenge that the major party folks don’t have, because there’s an infrastructure for them.”

Craig Snyder, the political director of the Pennsylvania Forward Party, emphasized that regardless of the individual race results, this year’s election could be considered a success if it lays the foundation for what he called “the next step forward.”

“As they say, the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. But tonight is a big step,” he emphasized. “I believe that our candidates will reach the threshold that gives us minor party status – we’ll be able to have the same ballot access rules as the major party candidates, and individual citizens will be able to register as members of the Forward Party if they choose to. Once people have the ability to do that, I think you’ll see Forward very rapidly overtake the other minor parties and become the third-largest party in the state. There’s a hunger for this.”

Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate who is one of the founding co-chairs of the Forward Party, echoed Snyder’s long-term view.

“If you think about it, 51% of Americans self-identify as Independents – and this election has, if anything, heightened people’s sense that there needs to be some kind of alternative,” he said. “We’re going to be growing through 2025 and 2026; the candidates running today are really the vanguard of a much bigger movement. And one of the things that distinguishes us from other efforts is that we’ve always expected to be doing this over multiple cycles.”

As of press time, results were still inconclusive as to whether the Forward Party would attain minority status for 2025.