Viable or not, Musk’s alternative disrupts the two-party system

Elon Musk, who has revolutionized the auto industry, launched rockets into space and built a global business empire may now be facing his most daunting challenge yet: shaking up the two-party system in American politics. 

Put another way, for all of his technological genius, Musk is likely to discover that the same institutional barriers that have long frustrated third-party movements do not discriminate, even for the world’s richest man.  

To be sure, this is not to say that alternatives to the two-party system are not worth exploring. Third parties have a long history in the U.S., and have even played pivotal roles in elections — most recently in 1992, when Ross Perot won nearly 20 percent of the vote. 

Further, Musk has correctly identified a problem plaguing the two current parties. Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with both of them and express a desire for a viable alternative. 

Indeed, considerable majorities of Americans feel that both Democrats (69 percent) and Republicans (64 percent) are “out of touch,” according to Washington Post polling. 

Similarly, Gallup, which has tracked support for a third party for more than 20 years, reported that nearly 6 in 10 (58 percent) Americans agree that a third major party is needed.

Since tracking began in 2003, support has averaged 56 percent, a clear majority. 

Thinking about Musk’s “America Party” specifically, four in 10 registered voters said they’d be “very likely” (14 percent) or “somewhat likely” (26 percent) to vote for it, per polling from Quantus Insights.

Taken together, the data strongly suggest that there is an appetite, if not outright desire, for a legitimate third-party option.

That said, there are a number of fundamental challenges that have stymied previous third-party movements that Musk would have to overcome. 

First, despite clear support for the idea, it is likely not enough to overcome the legal, organizational, and institutional barriers that have reinforced the two-party system since the mid-19th century. 

The two major parties are massive organizations, with national, state and even county-level offices which have developed relationships with local donors and other operatives. 

Even with Musk’s virtually unlimited money, setting up a competing organization on a similar scale, before the 2026 midterms, or even the 2028 presidential election, would be incredibly hard at best, impossible at worst. 

This is not a new problem for those interested in a third party. Outside of Perot’s 1992 finish, there is a long history of third party and independent candidates who fail to make any noise in national elections, partly due to the lack of political infrastructure. 

Since 1912, only Perot and former President Teddy Roosevelt have received more than 10 percent of the vote as non-major party candidates. 

Even as recently as 2024 election, No Labels was a well-funded effort to find a different, centrist candidate, but it eventually shut down when it failed to gain traction. 

Any third party faces also obstacles to ballot access due to rules designed by Democrats and Republicans for the very purpose of preserving a two-party system.  

Complicating matters further is that each state has different ballot access laws, meaning America Party candidates would need to launch sizable grassroots efforts in every state. 

For example, California requires minor party candidates to collect 75,000 signatures among voters who are officially switching parties or are first-time voters. In Texas, America Party candidates would need 81,000 signatures within a mandated 75-day timeframe. Other states, such as Florida, require a new party’s national committee to be recognized by the state’s election commission, members of which are political appointees and thus unlikely to readily approve a new party that would upend the status quo.

Of course, it is not impossible for third party candidates to gain ballot access. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. secured enough signatures to get on the ballot in 47 states during his 2024 presidential bid.  

However, that was one candidate. For Musk’s new party to be impactful, it would need to run multiple candidates across dozens of states.  

The second challenge Musk would face are legitimate concerns that his new party may not attract the candidates or the voters he thinks it will. 

According to the Quantus Insights poll, the demographics most likely to back the America Party are Republican men (57 percent), independent men (47 percent) and Republican women (43 percent).  

Far from the 80 percent of Americans Musk claims are in the political middle and open to his party, it appears that he would simply pull votes from the fringes of the Republican Party, where he would be competing with President Trump’s influence. 

To that end, if Musk does simply want to split the “MAGA” vote, the America Party would likely play an identical role to that of Perot, who siphoned votes off from former President George H.W. Bush and paved the way for Bill Clinton to win the presidency. 

Finally, what would be the America Party platform? If Musk wants to build a party around making extreme cuts to government spending, he will eventually discover why neither Democrats nor Republicans make serious pushes to cut federal spending: It’s unpopular, to the point of making any America Party candidates unviable. 

Ultimately, even if there are considerable flaws in Musk’s third-party idea, it is worth recognizing the growing sense of alienation many Americans feel towards both major parties.  

Ever-increasing polarization in our political system over recent years has created two parties which, despite bending the rules to preserve their domination, increasingly represent fewer and fewer Americans.

This is a significant and very real problem which must be addressed. 

Even so, Washington, D.C. is not Silicon Valley. The “move-fast-and-break-things” style that Musk has used to become a generational business leader is less applicable to the political arena, something Musk saw during his time at DOGE, and a lesson he will likely learn again if he commits to funding a third party.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.”