Elon Musk's Third Party Bid

Elon Musk

Third parties have basically been around in American politics since the beginning of the country.  The Anti-Masonic Party, considered by most to be the first third party movement in our nation's history, was formed in 1828, when Founding Fathers like James Madison & John Jay were still alive.  Throughout the two centuries that have followed only once (when the Whigs were replaced by the Republican Party) has a third party actually upended American politics enough to disrupt what has essentially always been a two-party system.  Most third party movements, historically, have been driven by the popularity (and ego) of one specific person, and died off when that person's political popularity disappeared.  Figures as diverse as Theodore Roosevelt, George Wallace, & Ross Perot have attempted to create third party movements, particularly on a presidential level, without success.

So it should not be surprising to anyone that, in the wake of his very public rift with President Trump, Elon Musk is attempting to form his own political party.  Like Perot before him, Musk is insanely rich, though Musk's money dwarfs Perot's, even adjusting for inflation, and can essentially fund a political party without anyone else's cash, which means he can dictate and choose any candidates he wants to run.  Musk's political ideology has been hard to pin down.  He is an environmentalist, a conspiracy theorist, & anti-government, socially conservative on issues like transgender rights, while moderate on gun control.  He is, admittedly, someone who doesn't really fit into an increasingly homogenous two-party system in the United States, so while I believe that his third party movement is largely driven by ego & his loss of influence in the Trump administration, there's some credence that neither party really represents his viewpoint.

Musk's money can buy things in America that can give you a leg-up in politics, and it's worth noting that if he's serious about a third-party movement disrupting the political paradigm, he's doing it in a smarter way than most, particularly by working from the ground up.  Musk has stated on Twitter that the new party could focus "on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts" under the assumption that by controlling just a few seats in each house of Congress, he would be able to have his own personal veto over specific legislation in Congress.  He's not wrong, and this is different than what most third party movements do-trying to run just for president; if he were to win 2-3 Senate seats and/or 8-10 House seats, and have figures that largely do his bidding, he'd be able to have what essentially amounted to a veto in Congress given how closely divided Congress has been in the past few sessions (this is crucial, given that Musk was a South African at birth, and is constitutionally barred from being president).

But while money can buy you ads, GOTV operations, & even get you high-profile candidates (I would imagine that, if he's serious, Musk will recruit former lawmakers or celebrities to run, and indeed, figures like Mark Cuban & Anthony Scaramucci have signaled their interest in his party), Musk would need to actually win some of these races to make a difference, and there lies the rub.  With the exception of Maine & Alaska (which it should be noted both have Senate races next session), ranked-choice voting isn't an option in most states, and so the winner of every election is a first-past-the-post winner (i.e. whomever gets the most votes, regardless of whether that's just a plurality).  If Musk is serious about winning (and not just being an agent of chaos or trying to play spoiler for one specific party...with Musk it's hard to tell), he would need to essentially eat into one party's base of support significantly, which is going to be a challenge.  Abortion is oftentimes the issue that comes up when discussing third parties, and it's the best example-Musk's candidates will need to state an opinion on the subject (it'll inevitably come up in interviews), and depending on their answer, they'll either piss off one side or the other (or try to find a murky middle ground which pleases no one on an issue that most Americans view as a binary topic).  This makes finding a third lane in politics next-to-impossible on a national scale like what Musk is trying to achieve.  His cult-of-personality might be able to find a candidate (maybe even Musk himself) that could break through in the way that someone like Jesse Ventura or Bernie Sanders broke through to gain an upper-ground, but in a dozen or so races?  I doubt it.

Unless you focus specifically on Alaska & Maine (which, if I were advising Musk, would be where I'd start given they have an infrastructure that's easier to take advantage of as a third party candidate), the most likely end game here is Musk playing spoiler.  If the main goal of Musk is to diminish the power of Donald Trump, with whom he is feuding, then using his party to give a majority to the Democrats in one or both houses of Congress would essentially do that.  If Musk were, for example, to find a third party candidate to take 5-7% of the vote in a Senate race in Ohio, Texas, or Iowa, that might be enough to get the Democrats an upset victory there.  The same could be said for a number of House seats (or the Senate race in North Carolina), where Republicans really aren't in a position that they can lose 5% of their support without it costing them an election.  This is not a new concept (it's why Montana Democrats cheered every time there was a Libertarian on the ballot against Jon Tester, and why Republicans love the Green Party), but given Musk's money & fame, it could be more potent, especially in a blue wave where disillusioned Republicans (who might otherwise just begrudgingly pull the lever for the right) have another option while Democrats unite against Trump.  Musk's deep pockets & celebrity make this more potent...though it also doesn't distinguish itself from any other third party, playing spoiler but with no actual wins to end the day.