How the Know-Nothings, Free Soilers and other third parties shaped US politics
Jul 8, 2025, 9:06 PM
Elon Musk’s plan to create a new political party puts him in the company of a long line of business and political titans looking to upend the two-party system that has dominated U.S. politics since almost the beginning.
From the Anti-Masonic Party in the early 1800s to last year’s ill-fated No Labels, nascent political parties have been a near-constant feature of U.S. politics. Some are impactful, others ephemeral, but few endure for long.
Though the Republican and Democratic parties have had a lock on political power since the Civil War, they have remade themselves over and over, often when faced with the prospect of losing voters to third parties.
The name Musk chose, the America Party, is bland compared to some of history’s more memorable movements — the Know-Nothing Party, the Bull Moose Party, the Dixiecrats.
Musk’s plans remain murky, but some of his public comments suggest he’s eying a limited goal, focusing on a handful of House races to gain influence without trying to win a majority.
“One way to execute on this would be to laser-focus on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts,” Musk wrote on X. “Given the razor-thin legislative margins, that would be enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.
Here’s a look at how third parties have made their mark through American history, even without winning the White House or congressional majorities.
The first third party, the Anti-Masons emerged in 1828 in opposition to the Freemasons, a secret society. The disappearance of William Morgan, a former Mason who had threatened to expose secrets, fueled widespread paranoia about the shadowy group, which many believed was covertly controlling the government.
The Anti-Masons evolved into a broadly anti-elite party. They were the first party to hold a convention to nominate a presidential candidate and to adopt a party platform, pioneering enduring staples of American democracy.
They held seats in the House for a decade, peaking at 25 after the 1832 election. That year, Anti-Mason presidential nominee William Wirt won Vermont, becoming the first third-party candidate to get electoral college votes, though his seven electoral votes did not affect Andrew Jackson’s decisive victory over Henry Clay.
The Anti-Masons were largely absorbed into the Whig Party.
“Barnburner Democrats” and “conscience Whigs,” anti-slavery factions, joined with remnants of the short-lived abolitionist Liberty Party to form the Free Soil Party after the Mexican American War. Free Soilers won a handful of House seats between 1848 and 1854.
Former President Martin Van Buren, who had served one term as a Democrat a decade earlier, was the Free Soil presidential nominee in 1848 but didn’t win any electoral votes.
As the U.S. expanded westward, the Free Soil Party advocated banning slavery in the new territories but not abolishing it in the places it already existed. The party described its principles with the slogan “free soil, free speech, free labor and free men.” Free Soilers pitched opposition to slavery on economic rather than moral grounds, arguing that expanding slavery would take jobs from Northern whites.
The party dissolved after the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 thrust slavery further into the political fray, upending the political coalitions. Despite its short life, however, the Free Soil Party laid the groundwork for the Republican Party.
The outgrowth of a secretive nativist movement, the anti-Catholic American Party opposed immigration, especially of Catholics. If asked about the party, members would say they “know nothing,” leading to the nickname.
Know-Nothing nominee Millard Fillmore, a former Whig Party president, won Maryland and its eight electoral votes in the 1856 election.
Though they won only a handful of House seats, the Know-Nothings showed there was a deep interest in anti-immigration policies and the political salience of ethnic and religious divisions.
Agricultural distress late in the 19th century catalyzed the rise of the Populists, who advocated aggressive economic and political reforms.
Known formally as the People’s Party, Populists wanted to nationalize railroads, enact a graduated income tax and directly elect senators. They supported the free coinage of silver in opposition to the gold standard’s fixed monetary supply.
In the 1896 presidential election, the Populists cross-nominated Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan, remembered for his “Cross of Gold” speech calling for free silver. The movement was largely absorbed into the Democratic Party after that.
The party was a force in only two presidential elections, but many of its reforms — including a graduated income tax and the direct election of senators — were adopted during the later progressive era.
The Bull Moose Party formed to back Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 campaign to return to the White House, which he ceded after losing the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft in 1908.
Roosevelt came in second in the electoral college, finishing ahead of Taft, by then the incumbent. Roosevelt’s 88 electoral votes were the most ever won by a third-party presidential candidate. By splitting the Republican vote with Taft, he allowed Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win.
The Bull Moose platform included women’s suffrage, an eight-hour workday and a crackdown on big business. Roosevelt’s strong showing showed the popularity of such reforms, and many were later embraced by both major parties.
Southern Democrats opposed to civil rights legislation formed the segregationist States’ Rights Democratic Party. Better known as the Dixiecrats, the party lasted for just one presidential election, nominating South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond, who won four Southern states in 1948.
The success of the Dixiecrats broke decades of Democratic dominance in the South and made clear that civil rights was a potent wedge issue, an insight that Richard Nixon would later exploit in his “southern strategy” to win over white voters in the South.
Billionaire Ross Perot put fiscal conservatism at the center of his largely self-funded presidential campaigns in 1992 and 1996.
Perot won 19% of the popular vote in 1992, enough to help tilt the election to Bill Clinton. Perot’s campaigns put a spotlight on the federal budget deficit and the growing national debt, a major force in 1990s policymaking.
