About 5 years ago, I interviewed Andrew Yang. He was fresh off his run for New York City mayor.
I'm running for mayor for every New Yorker.
He had run as a Democratic candidate for United States president.
The next president, Andrew Yang.
And he had a new idea that he was excited about pursuing. It was an alternative to Democrat and Republican politics called the Forward Party.
This kind of independent third party has been tried before, but Andrew had a long-term vision for how this party could work and how it could grab power not just at the federal level in Congress and the House and the US Senate, but also at the state level and build that power from the ground up.
It's been 5 years since Andrew and I last spoke about the Forward Party, but today I got to sit down with him and former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman who shared with me what's happened in the last 5 years, how the project has evolved, and why they're feeling pretty optimistic heading into November. Hope you guys enjoy this interview. It's a fascinating one, especially for all you political independents out there.
All right, here's Governor Whitman and Andrew Yang. Governor Whitman, Andrew Yang, thank you guys so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Oh, we're glad to be with you.
Thanks for having us, Isaac.
Andrew, I'm going to come to you first here. You and I last spoke in 2021, so first of all, I apologize for not keeping in touch better. It feels like a different eon that we had that interview, and at the time the Forward Party was, you know, a seedling of an idea almost. You had just finished running for mayor in New York City. There was, you know, a lot of talk about where the Democratic Party was going after Joe Biden had won, but it wasn't really clear what the Forward Party was going to look like and how you were going to execute some of the plans. Though at that time when we spoke, you knew you wanted to give the American people an option that was different from just Democrats and Republicans. Can you tell me a little bit about what's happened in the last 5 years with the Forward Party? I mean, where has that idea gone and what does it look like today?
Oh, well, thanks for setting that table, Isaac. I've teamed up with the awesome Governor Christie Todd Whitman and Lieutenant Governor Kathy Healy through a merger of our organizations that happened in '22, and now we have state committees in 40 states, 83 elected officials around the country, about 250 candidates on the ballot around the country this time, a sitting state senator in Utah, a member of Congress in California who's aligned with us, Kevin Kiley, and then now these two US Senate candidates that the governor and I, I'm sure, will talk up, Todd Achilles in Idaho and Brian Bengs in South Dakota, that are both running as independents. The Democrats dropped out of those races, so you have an independent one-on-one with an incumbent Republican and they're polling evenly with the incumbents. So, Forward could have one or two aligned US senators as early as January of 2027. So, we're very, very proud of the progress over the last 5 years and the governor and I have now shared a stage, gosh, at this point dozens of times.
I want to hear more about that. And Governor Whitman, I'll come to you for this. I mean, on paper, you know, I'll talk about Andrew like he's not here for a minute. I mean, if I were to try and describe his politics, maybe kind of technocrat, tech forward, little left leaning, has run as a Democrat in the past. You're a lifelong Republican, former governor of New Jersey. Why is this working? What's going on between you two? This isn't supposed to happen. You guys seem like you like each other, you get along, you agree on stuff. Tell me a little bit about where you and Andrew are aligned and how this partnership has come to fruition.
Well, what we're aligned with is saving our democracy. What we're aligned with is a belief that the voters deserve another choice. Because the two major parties have things so tightly controlled that they're not interested anymore, if they have been for the last decade or so, to solve problems. They're only really interested in holding power. And they tell their candidates and their office holders what they have to believe and what they have to say. And, you know, I have huge respect for Andrew. He's enormously, first of all, he's enormously popular. The Yang Gang has not gone away at all. And he's extremely bright. And working together has really been a pleasure for me. You know, we probably wouldn't agree on every issue, on how to solve every issue. I think we agree on every issue that needs to be solved. We may just come at a different way of solving it. But that's the beauty of Forward, because right now we are a fully recognized party in seven states, and partially, meaning our candidates can run on a Forward Party line, in five, because every state makes it difficult for a third party to participate and for those candidates to get on the ballot. But we will also support Republicans, Democrats, Independents, as long as they have walked the talk and signed the pledge that we require of them, which I'm always kind of embarrassed to say what it is in the sense that it's: they agree to uphold the rule of law, respect the Constitution, work with anyone to solve problems, you know, create a safe space to discuss those controversial issues, work to ensure that everyone who has a legal right to vote gets to vote. They base their decisions on fact and data. And beyond that, they base everything on decency, democracy, and diversity. And that's the way it should be. They should be responsible to and responsive to their constituents, not to a party. And that's where we agree wholeheartedly.
Andrew, it was funny when I went back and read this transcript of our interview from 2021. It was like this little time capsule, you know. I actually opened the interview by saying that I was sick with COVID, which really brought back some dark days for me. And we were sort of commiserating a little bit over our battle with the illness at the time. And I was struck by a couple things. One, at that time, I think universal basic income was a really critical part of, you know, the platform that you imagined Forward Party being built around. We were talking about cryptocurrency, and there was kind of this really tech-forward ethos to a lot of the things that you were focused on as the Forward Party was sort of in its inception. Today, when I look at it, it seems to be a lot more about the things Governor Whitman just referenced, you know, upholding democracy, rule of law, constitutional stuff. Tell me a little bit about that evolution, and, you know, what sorts of the original ethos still exists in the Forward Party now, and how you feel like it's changed over the last 5 years.
Yeah, the governor and I are completely unified in that we're not going to be able to solve the nation's problems meaningfully unless we actually rejuvenate our political system, give voters real choice, make elected officials accountable for things like results. Which were, by the way, right now they're not. I mean, it's insulated electeds in both parties because they have these primaries where they only have to really appeal to the 11% on the relative extremes of their own party and then they coast in the general. So, if you don't fix that, then you don't wind up with the solutions that I would like to see. You don't wind up with the solutions that Governor Whitman would like to see or the vast majority of Americans. They just released some polls showing that 60%, 65% of us agree on a lot of common sense issues, but neither party is offering those kinds of policies because they'd rather pit us against each other. And I think a lot of Americans have all drawn the same conclusion that, look, you and I might not line up on every single policy, but we can agree that this system has to go or change for us to meaningfully move forward.
You know, it's really going back to the founding principles and the founding fathers. They warned us about this. They said, 'Beware of two parties, having just two parties, that this was going to be the thing that breaks, that brings down democracy.' And I would argue, and I think Andrew would agree, that our democracy is hanging on by a thread. And it's so important that we get our people in office. And while we have these two US Senate candidates who have a very good chance of winning, we have other senatorial candidates, too, who are very competitive. But these two that are just running head-to-head with a Republican are probably our biggest chances, our easiest to identify. We also have a number of current office holders and office holders running at the local level and the state level, because that's building the farm team for the future. It's also where some of those most critical decisions get made, redistricting. You know, judges, appointment of judges, all those things happen at the state and local level. And we shouldn't forget those, because that's where you start making a difference. And then, the ideas that Andrew has put forward on UBI, UBI, sorry, that's where they can play out. That's where people can decide, is this right for me? We're not going to tell them, no, don't do that, because maybe some of us don't think it's the answer or others think it's the only answer. We open it up and we'll tell people, we've been telling, and we've had, what is it, Andrew, 10 issue groups where we've brought together people who really understand the issues to carve out what are the biggest challenges within those issue areas and then where those challenges have been met successfully, and then we send that out to our party leadership and to our candidates and say, hey, if these things resonate with you, if they will work for your constituents, here are some ideas that you can massage to make it work in your state. And the opening primaries, for instance, is it ranked choice voting, is it open primaries, there are a lot of different ways to address that and you've got to do what's going to work in your state. And that's where we'll allow those kind of issues, particularly the really technical ones that Andrew talks about, to be fully discussed and determined, and that's the only way I think it can ever happen.
All right, I'm going to be a little bit of a curmudgeon here and then I'm going to invite you guys to cheer me up a tiny bit, and I'm excited for this part of the interview. I have been doing this work for a little while now, 7 years I've been running this newsletter that is, you know, and podcast and a YouTube channel where, like, appealing to people from across the political spectrum. I've been a political independent for a long time. Over, you know, the last decade I've seen a lot of groups pop up with this kind of non-partisan independent ethos who have a really grand vision about reforming the system, changing things, and I feel as if I am consistently let down. They come in, they talk a lot, it's really big promises, we're going to, you know, ranked choice voting across the country, more open primaries, we're going to tear down the duopoly, all this kind of stuff. And they fizzle out. They have infighting, they go the way of, you know, some of the other third-party groups you've seen who end up just like picking a side in elections, and it feels like the system eats them alive. And I want to hear from you, too. Like, give me the realistic forward-looking case for how you guys imagine you will change the way the country's election system operates. How you will imagine you'll have a positive impact on democracy. Like, paint the nuts and bolts picture for me of what the next two, four, six, 10 years could look like, and why you're confident that you might actually be able to make a difference, cuz I want to believe. I want to join hands and believe, but it's a hard time to be optimistic right now.
Isaac, I just want to suggest the time capsule of our conversation 5 years ago. It's like you and I talked, Forward was a thing. We're talking now, and Forward is much bigger, more robust, more vital. Again, will have well over 100 elected officials after November. We might have a fulcrum in the US Senate. And then if you try and fast-forward another 5 years from now, imagine if you had an independent primary that could transpire as early as 2028, and have people be able to participate around the country, perhaps digitally, could be verified via a personalized QR code that gets sent to your mailing address. So, the message I want to impart on the people is like, 'Look, this is real. It's getting built right now.' Committees in 40 states, hundreds of elected officials in a hot minute. Go to forwardparty.com and check it out. And Isaac, I'm going to put this to you, is like, the reason why me and the governor teamed up and the reason why Forward is working is because we make common cause with other people. We're not like the my-way-or-the-highway crew. And I want to call out what happened, for example, in Utah or in South Carolina where there were activists in those states, the United Utah Party, the Independence Party of South Carolina. We showed up and said, 'Let's team up.' And then in both cases, they changed their names to the Forward Party and now they are the Forward Party in those states, and by the way, they have ballot access. So, we're the let's-build-it, let's collaborate, let's be the team that other people can join and say, 'Look, I don't agree with everything that Andrew or Governor Whitman stands for, but they love me, they want me to join.' Isaac, we want you to join. We want everyone listening to this to join. If you are a disaffected independent, I'm actually going to put the challenge to you. This is the only thing I have seen that can change it, and we can do it, but we certainly could use your help.
Now, we need everybody. And the difference between what we're doing and what the past issue groups have done is we're really building a party from the ground up. We're in it for the long term. All of us have been around the track a number of times, and we understand how difficult this is going to be. We knew that getting into it. All our state chairs, they're all volunteers, but they're people who care deeply. Our candidates come from all walks of life. We have farmers, ranchers, firemen, doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs probably somewhere, hopefully. I would love that. We are made up of real people who want to be in office to make a difference. And as Andrew has said, we have over 200 candidates. We will have, by the time we finish doing all our endorsements, running from everything from the local school board to the United States Senate, to governor. We're doing that. We're building that and we're doing it in a way that allows people who feel disenfranchised today to feel that they have a home because they do. This is their opportunity. And I have to say when you've got almost 50% or now probably 50% of registered voters as registered independents. And that, oh, by the way, I'm an independent, registered independent now.
They're telling both parties, 'We don't like what's going on. You're not solving our problems. You're just infighting and trying to split us and make us hate one another. And that's not who the American people are.' And so we're providing that opportunity. But now's the time. I mean, you really got to stand up if you care about the future of the country and our democracy, you got to stand up now.
Yeah, I want to throw two names into the mix, Isaac. Todd Achilles and Brian Bengs, both independents running for US Senate in Idaho and South Dakota. So for people who say, 'Hey, this can't be done,' check these guys out. They're again tied with the incumbents. Let's get behind them. Let's send them a few bucks. Let's do some calling and texting. I mean, the high bar would be to actually go to Idaho or South Dakota and knock on doors, but...
We'll be there. I know you and I are...
Isaac, where do you... Yeah, I mean, you know, me and the governor might be there, but you know, I don't expect everyone to drop everything. Isaac, where do you live as an example?
I live in New Jersey now.
Yeah, yeah. So Idaho and South Dakota a little bit out of the way, but as the math guy, let me suggest to you all that these are the ideal states where you can have a Senate candidate breakthrough because you have rural populations, very inexpensive media markets. Both Todd and Brian have raised seven figures for their races, which means they're going to be on TV because these are very cheap dates, cheap states, you know what I mean? It's not like Jersey where you would have to actually, you might have to buy ads in like the New York City media market. It's so expensive.
And in Pennsylvania. It's a lot easier in Boise.
Yeah. I'm curious to hear from you guys a little bit about how the younger generation plays into this, kind of the 18 to 30-year-old cohort. I think traditionally a group of voters that kind of get dinged for never really showing up. But it strikes me as a particularly disaffected cohort of voters now today in 2026. I mean party loyalty among under-30 voters has basically evaporated, which if I'm sitting in your guys' shoes feels like a group of people who are ripe for the picking. How are you guys thinking about the next generation of American voters? Are you pitching yourselves to them? What does that look like?
