Rutgers Eagleton hosts Andrew Yang and Forward Party, speaks with WRSU
Rahil Chatterjee interviews Andrew Yang on political polarization. (Photo Credit: Eagleton Institute of Politics)
Last week, Rutgers Eagleton held a conversation regarding American politics with the founders of the Forward Party as part of the 2025 Clifford P. Case Professorship in Public Affairs.
Director of the Eagleton Institute, Elizabeth C. Matto, moderated the conversation between the chairs of the Forward Party: former Massachusetts Lt. Governor Dr. Kerry Healy, former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, and Forward Party founder and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang.
Dr. Matto began the conversation by asking the chairs their views of the state of American politics today, upon which they found agreement in the idea that the American people do not think that the government is working for them. Yang asserted his concerns regarding the ongoing government shutdown, and that the Democratic Party’s choice to “show fight” would ultimately hurt people alongside the current concerns about artificial intelligence in the job market.
Moving into their goals, Dr. Healey emphasized that they are “not left, not right, just forward.” Revealing that the Forward Party is currently working with 52 elected officials and on the ballot in four states, they are trying to recruit and support an independent congressional slate to work as a coalition in the 2026 midterms.
The Forward Party’s goal is to provide structural support to future candidates. Governor Whitman also added the importance of local elections and “diversity, decency, and democracy.”
In discussing prior attempts at third parties, all three panelists vowed for the Forward Party to be centered around the movement, rather than a singular person. Yang stated that “Nobody knows what Forward means, so they don’t know how to hate it yet,” when discussing what would come after the two-party system – as it would either be “Forward” and better, or something “rancid and evil.”
The discussion closed off with Yang encouraging the formation of a Forward Party chapter here at Rutgers. The audience Q&A included questions about big money and technological oligarchs, national politics, and concepts like universal basic income (which was part of Yang’s 2020 presidential platform). WRSU’s Rahil Chatterjee was able to ask a one-on-one question following the event:
Keya Raval and Maryam Malihi also contributed to this report.