Midterm elections are coming in November featuring the usual contest: Democrats versus Republicans. But some surveys show that many voters prefer neither party, and in fact, would like to have another choice altogether.

A Pew Research Center survey from August shows the percentage of voters with an unfavorable view of both political parties has risen from 6% in 1994 to 27% today.

A 2021 Gallup survey indicated that in 2003, 56% of voters believed that the two parties did an “adequate job of representing the American people.” This number had dropped to 33% in 2021. Those who thought a third major party was needed had risen from 40% to 62%.

Straight Arrow News contributor Jordan Reid would also like to see a third major political party, so that someone like AOC or Bernie Sanders has more opportunity:

With the midterms looming, I am stressed. But not only because of the potentially enormous consequences of a red wave – which I actually don’t think is a foregone conclusion, but that’s another segment. I’m stressed because Biden is almost certainly shooting for a second term, and…I’m conflicted. 

I don’t think Biden is a bad president, at all. I don’t think he will necessarily lose to Trump, or DeSantis, or whatever cretin crawls out of the RNC. I do think that we needed Biden to heal our country in the wake of Trump, but I don’t know that he’s what we need for the country to move forward. 

This is a tough realization to come to, but the more I read, the more I learn, the more I’m seeing just how much we missed the boat with a Bernie Sanders presidency – and just how desperately we need someone like him to enact real change during an ever-narrowing window in which change feels like it may still be a possibility. 

The Republicans are in bed with Big Pharma, with the NRA, with…I mean, the list goes on. And putting a Republican in power at this moment in time is asking for a future in which the rights of women and people of color are decimated, and which the power that’s already firmly in the hands of a very small group of rich white men becomes even greater, if that’s possible. It’s terrifying.

But another Democratic candidate hand-picked by the DNC to carry out their specific agenda – which, I might remind you, is not divested from corporate interests at all – is scary, too. What Trump’s win showed us at its base level is just how deeply disenfranchised Americans feel. They think their vote doesn’t matter. They think what they want doesn’t matter and what they overwhelmingly want is access to childcare, education, decreased military spending, access to abortion, and a number of other policies that the DNC generally views as leaning just a bit too far to the left – got to be centrists. 

What frightens me is that we’ve already seen the ability of the powerful to shut down those who want to return the country to the people – the DNC chose Hillary Clinton, and she became the candidate, with results that shocked many, but probably shouldn’t have if we’d just been paying attention. Millions and millions and millions of people didn’t vote in the 2016 election, because they thought their vote didn’t matter. And they had good reason to think so.

We need a Sanders. We need an AOC. We need someone who will say “No,” and it’s not only the RNC making it impossible for a person like that to come to power – it’s the DNC, too.

We need another party, one that isn’t beholden to the behind-the-scenes machinations of a self-invested few. I’m scared that we’ve already reached the point in time where the people we really need running our country aren’t even going to have the appearance of an opportunity.