When Kevin Kiley walked out of the Republican Party on March 9, he became the only independent member of the House of Representatives. The California congressman said he had been “frustrated, at times disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress,” and he pointed to a 43-day government shutdown, rising health care costs and what he called a “pointless redistricting war.” His verdict was blunt: “Both parties are complicit,” he told CBS News.
Seven months later, Kiley is learning what independence costs. House committee seats are handed out through the two-party caucuses. To keep his committee posts, including a subcommittee chairmanship, he has had to stay formally tied to the Republican Conference for the rest of his term, according to his congressional office. “The committee seats should belong to the American people,” Kiley told SFGATE, as he urged the House Rules Committee to end what he called a “crazy policy.”
A county commissioner in Pennsylvania named Ron Beitler, who left the GOP in February, described the same wall from much closer to home. Running without a party means “you’re doing so completely alone, without any party apparatus,” he told Spotlight PA. “The entire system is structured to maintain that two-party control.”
That word, “alone,” captures both the problem and the opportunity. For the first time in modern American history, both major parties are in open turmoil at once, and millions of voters and a growing number of officeholders no longer have a comfortable place to stand. A new party such as the Centercratic Party could grow the way the strongest new parties always have, by building a base of ordinary members while welcoming sitting officeholders who are ready to leave. That path holds real promise, and it is also lined with traps that have sunk every serious attempt in living memory.
Why This Is Not 1971
Fifty years ago, a centrist party would have struggled to find room. The Pew Research Center found more than 160 moderates in Congress in 1971 and 1972, compared with about two dozen in 2022, according to NBC News. Back then, conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans still had a home inside their own parties.
Those homes are being torn down on both sides. Liz Cheney lost her 2022 primary by 37 points after breaking with Donald Trump, and this year Senator John Cornyn lost his Texas runoff to Ken Paxton by 28 points, as I noted in a recent essay on the transformed GOP. In May, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost his primary 55 percent to 45 percent to a challenger handpicked by the president, NPR reported.
Many other Republicans are simply heading for the exits, and House Republicans are leaving at a rate not seen since 1930, with the single exception of 2018, according to The New York Times. Even inside the president’s own movement, Tucker Carlson has said, “I’m going to help build a third party,” Time reported.
The Democratic Party is fighting a battle of its own, one that The Wall Street Journal has called a civil war. Five Democratic incumbents were among the House members who lost primaries this year, The New York Times found. One of them was Representative Diana DeGette of Colorado, who fell to 29-year-old democratic socialist Melat Kiros after nearly three decades in office, according to the Associated Press. The centrist group Third Way has launched a $15 million campaign to push back, ABC News Australia reported, and eight moderate Democrats recently joined Republicans in a vote condemning socialism, according to Reuters.
Voters have noticed the turmoil in both parties, and a record 45 percent of Americans now call themselves independents, according to Gallup. A September poll by The Wall Street Journal found that 21 percent of voters dislike both parties, up from 13 percent in 2022.
How New Parties Have Actually Won
The United States has watched an old party collapse and a new one rise in its place before. In 1854, after Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a coalition of former Whigs and northern Democrats began organizing at the local level under a new Republican label, according to the U.S. Senate Historical Office. They took the House after the 1858 midterms, and by 1860 they controlled the Senate, the House and the presidency.
Britain offers a second lesson. The Labour Party was founded in 1900 and grew slowly until January 1909, when the miners’ union voted to join Labour and 14 miners’ members of Parliament who had been elected as Liberal allies moved over, according to the Journal of Liberal History. By 1922, Labour had replaced the Liberals as the official opposition, according to Britannica.
The modern examples move much faster. Emmanuel Macron founded En Marche in April 2016, and just 14 months later his movement won 308 of the 577 seats in France’s National Assembly, while the Socialist Party that had governed France fell to 30 seats, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Defectors were welcome, but they had to leave their old parties first, the Congressional Research Service noted.
Reform UK in Britain shows the same pattern unfolding right now. Several of its members of Parliament crossed over from the Conservatives, yet Nigel Farage has insisted his party is “not a rescue charity for every panicky Tory MP,” the BBC reported. In May, Reform won more than 1,400 council seats, and the BBC projected its national vote share at 26 percent, according to the BBC’s results coverage.
In every one of these success stories, the new party combined two things. It built a real organization of members and candidates, and it gave experienced officeholders from a failing party a credible place to land.
The Opportunity in a Closely Divided House
The math in Washington makes this moment unusual. Republicans hold the House by a margin of 218 to 214, NPR reported this week, and the Cook Political Report expects Democrats to win somewhere between 220 and 230 seats in November, according to NPR. Either way, the next House majority will likely be thin.
In a chamber that close, five or six members who answer to neither party could decide which bills pass and which ones die. As I argued in a recent Center Voter essay, a small group of legislators in a closely divided House can exercise influence far beyond its numbers. A single independent like Kiley has a voice, but a bloc carrying a party label has bargaining power.
Sitting members bring assets that a young party cannot easily buy, including name recognition, donors, experienced staff and instant press coverage. Grassroots growth brings what defectors cannot supply on their own, such as volunteers, ballot access and a reason to exist that does not depend on any one politician. The Centercratic Party’s published playbook is built around that second track, with ballot-access audits in all 50 states, local Neighborhood Circles and a steadily growing membership.
The Obstacles Are Real
The first obstacle is the voters themselves. Gallup found that 62 percent of Americans say a third major party is needed, but only 15 percent say they are very likely to vote for one, according to Gallup. Another survey found that 57 percent worry about wasting their vote on a third-party candidate, Fox 13 reported.
The second obstacle is the price that party switchers often pay at the ballot box, a pattern documented in scholarly research on congressional party switching. Kiley’s own race shows the risk. A poll sponsored by a group backing him showed a tie with Democrat Richard Pan, yet the Cook Political Report still rates the district Solid Democratic, according to Elk Grove News.
The third obstacle is the law. Many states have “sore loser” rules that bar a candidate who loses a party primary from running on another line in the general election, according to the Congressional Research Service. Closed primaries add another barrier, and Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said he would leave the Republican Party “100 percent” if his state had open primaries, Political Wire reported.
Inside the Capitol, the House rules that forced Kiley to keep a formal tie to his old party work against any new party until it is large enough to be recognized, as the Congressional Research Service has explained. A member who switches gives up seniority and influence on the day of the announcement.
The Risks of Getting It Wrong
Britain’s Social Democratic Party is the warning every new party should study. In 1981, 28 Labour members of Parliament and one Conservative joined it, and two years later its alliance with the Liberals won 25 percent of the vote but only 23 seats, according to the BBC. By 1988 it had merged out of existence, proof that defections without a deep base can produce headlines but not lasting power.
Parties built around one famous person tend to fade even faster. Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party won about a quarter of the vote in 1912, but it “evaporated” once he returned to the Republicans four years later, according to Britannica. Elon Musk announced his America Party in July 2025, yet weeks later he still had not filed paperwork for it with the Federal Election Commission, CNN reported.
There is also a quieter danger. A party that accepts every unhappy incumbent risks becoming a shelter for politicians who lost favor at home rather than a movement with its own convictions. Worse, a few powerful defectors could try to take over the new party and reshape it in their own image. Farage’s refusal to run a “rescue charity” reflects a lesson every new party must learn early.
What a Smart Path Looks Like
The answer is to recruit a group, not a celebrity. A founding delegation of three to seven House members from both parties, announcing together in early 2028, would show voters a movement rather than a single act of frustration. That kind of launch requires quiet preparation through 2027, with ballot access confirmed and reelection campaigns ready before anyone says a word in public.
Every recruit should also sign on to something larger than personal ambition. The Centercratic Party’s nine founding principles give defectors that test, with commitments such as limiting terms, holding everyone to one law and debating with facts and dignity. A member who cannot embrace those principles in public is not ready to join.
On November 3, voters in California’s Sixth District will decide whether Kevin Kiley keeps his seat. Whatever they choose, his year as a party of one has already taught the most important lesson of this moment. The next member of Congress who walks away from a party in meltdown should not have to walk alone. If enough of them walk out together toward a party already waiting for them, they will find a door where none has stood since the 1850s, and it will be one they can finally walk through.
Each week, our Friday Vision uncovers the depth of our institutional decay and presents the blueprints required for long-term solutions. We trace the arc of major national challenges from the decades of neglect that broke the system to the designs needed to rebuild it. We show what governance actually looks like when it is rooted in competence, accountability, and a genuine understanding of complex problems. We do not have to accept the current state of politics because the future is a choice we make together.
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