As the Common Sense Party grows, we’ve been getting a question with increasing frequency: are you the same Common Sense Party as the one in California? Or Michigan? Are you connected to the Forward Party?
The short answer is no. We’re an independent organization. We aren’t affiliated with Common Sense for California, Common Sense Michigan, the Forward Party, or any other political organization. We were founded independently, we’re funded independently, and we set our own platform based on what we believe is best for the country — not what any other group tells us to think.
But the longer answer is more interesting, and it says something important about where American politics is right now.
We’re Not Alone in the Middle
The fact that multiple organizations have independently arrived at similar names, similar messaging, and similar positions should tell you something. It’s not a coincidence. It’s a signal.
Common Sense for California is a centrist movement focused on practical governance in a state where one-party dominance has led to some of the same dysfunction we see at the national level — runaway costs, housing crises, regulatory overreach, and a political establishment that’s more interested in ideological purity than solving problems. Common Sense Michigan is working a similar angle in a state with its own version of political dysfunction. The Forward Party, co-founded by Andrew Yang, is explicitly trying to build a centrist alternative to the two-party system with a focus on electoral reform, including ranked choice voting and open primaries.
We share DNA with all of these movements. Not organizationally — we’ve never coordinated with any of them, and our platforms differ in meaningful ways. But philosophically, we’re drawing from the same well. The well that says: most Americans are reasonable people who are sick of being forced to choose between two increasingly extreme options. The well that says: pragmatism isn’t weakness, compromise isn’t surrender, and the best ideas don’t all belong to one side.
That’s not a coincidence. That’s a market signal. When multiple independent groups spontaneously emerge to fill the same gap, the gap is real.
Where We Overlap — and Where We Don’t
Let’s be specific about where we stand relative to these other movements, because voters deserve clarity.
Electoral reform. We share significant common ground with the Forward Party on ranked choice voting, which we recently added to our government reform platform. We agree that the current voting system traps voters in a lesser-of-two-evils calculation that suppresses genuine choice. Where we may differ is on the specifics of implementation and the broader scope of reforms needed — we also advocate for congressional term limits, independent redistricting, and campaign finance reform as essential structural changes.
Fiscal responsibility. This is a core pillar of our platform that doesn’t always get the same emphasis from other centrist movements. We believe that the national debt crisis is the single most urgent threat to American prosperity, and we support specific mechanisms — rescission authority, line-item veto, a balanced budget amendment — to force fiscal discipline. We’re explicit about this in a way that some other groups aren’t, because we believe you can’t credibly talk about building a better future while ignoring the $39 trillion anchor around the country’s neck.
Tone and approach. Some centrist movements position themselves primarily as anti-polarization — the pitch is less about specific policy and more about bringing the temperature down. We care about civility too, but we’re not just a vibes party. We have detailed positions on healthcare, immigration, tax policy, foreign policy, education, Social Security, economic policy, and more. We believe being in the middle doesn’t mean being vague. It means being specific about what works, even when that means telling both sides things they don’t want to hear.
Scope. Common Sense for California and Common Sense Michigan are state-level movements focused on state-level governance. We’re building a national party with a national platform and, starting in 2028, national candidates. The problems we’re focused on — the debt, entitlement reform, foreign policy, federal tax policy, the structure of Congress itself — are federal issues that require federal solutions.
Why It Matters That We’re Independent
We get asked sometimes why we don’t just merge with one of these other groups. More people, more resources, more visibility — wouldn’t that be smarter?
Maybe. But independence matters for a reason.
When you’re beholden to another organization — their donors, their leadership, their brand — you compromise your ability to say what you actually think. You start making calculations about what your partners will accept instead of what the country needs. You become, in miniature, exactly the kind of compromised political entity you set out to replace.
We’d rather be a small party that says exactly what it means than a large coalition that waters everything down to the lowest common denominator. If our positions align with the Forward Party or Common Sense California on a given issue, great — we’ll say so. If they don’t, we’ll say that too. We’re not interested in building a brand. We’re interested in building a platform that the majority of Americans can look at and say: “Yeah, that’s what I actually believe.”
The Bigger Picture
Here’s what excites us about this moment, even though we’re organizationally separate from all of these groups: the center is waking up.
For decades, the conventional wisdom in American politics has been that the middle doesn’t organize. The extremes are passionate, engaged, and willing to show up. The middle is passive — they vote, sometimes, but they don’t build movements. They don’t start parties. They don’t knock on doors or write checks or run for office.
That’s changing. Common Sense for California, Common Sense Michigan, the Forward Party, No Labels (whatever you think of their execution), and yes, us — we’re all evidence that the 80% who’ve been ignored are starting to do something about it. Not in a coordinated way. Not from the top down. Independently, organically, in different states and with different approaches, but all pointed at the same basic truth: the two-party system isn’t working, the extremes don’t represent us, and someone needs to build something better.
We intend to be that something. But we’re genuinely glad we’re not the only ones trying. The more voices there are in the center, the harder it becomes for the political establishment to pretend the middle doesn’t exist.
So Who Are We?
We’re the Common Sense Party. We were founded in 2026 by Americans who were tired of watching both parties fail — tired of the performative outrage, the fiscal recklessness, the institutional decay, and the relentless pressure to pick a team instead of thinking for yourself.
We believe in free markets with guardrails. A social safety net, not a social hammock. A strong national defense paired with genuine diplomacy. Individual liberty balanced with collective responsibility. And above all, fiscal sanity — because none of the rest of it matters if we bankrupt the country paying interest on money we’ve already spent.
We’re not Common Sense California. We’re not Common Sense Michigan. We’re not the Forward Party. We wish them all well, we share many of their concerns, and we’ll happily work alongside any of them on issues where we agree. But we answer to our own members, our own principles, and our own conscience.
If that sounds like the kind of politics you’ve been waiting for, you know where to find us.
Read our full platform: commonsenseforamerica.org/ourplatform