29-04-2025
United Utah, Forward Party merge after first-of-its kind vote. Up next? A new name
Supporters of the Forward Party mingle at a joint convention between the United Utah and Utah Forward parties, where members of both parties voted to merge into one. The convention took place at Salt Lake Community College in Taylorsville on April 26, 2025. (Courtesy of Alora Casper, Executive Director of United Utah Party)
Two of Utah's centrist parties have officially joined forces in hopes of growing a movement to break away from a two-party, 'us-versus-them' system.
The United Utah Party and the Utah Forward Party held an unprecedented combined convention on Saturday at Salt Lake Community College in Taylorsville, where both parties voted nearly unanimously to approve a memorandum of understanding to formally merge under the umbrella of the national Forward Party.
An 'unprecedented' merger of 2 centrist parties: United Utah Party looks to join Forward Party
It's the first time two political parties have ever joined together in the state of Utah. Party officials said they're coordinating with the state's top election officials in the lieutenant governor's office to facilitate the merger, for which no legal process exists in state law.
Still, the parties are charting their own path for the merger, for which the now-approved memorandum of understanding lays out a process that will take place over the next several months.
The new party's name, the MOU stipulates, 'shall be the 'Utah Forward Party,' the 'United Forward Party' or such other name selected and approved by the National Forward Party.'
On Saturday, both parties voted independently to approve the merger before combining in a joint session, where leaders gave speeches applauding the merger as a momentum-building move for Utah's moderate and centrist movement.
Speakers included newly-elected Chair Michelle Quist — who last year ran as United Utah's candidate for attorney general — and Sen. Dan Thatcher, a former Republican from West Valley, who recently announced he'd left the GOP to join the Utah Forward Party.
'There are real problems that Utahns are facing, but our leaders aren't listening because they're too busy trying to win their partisan blood sport,' Quist said. 'The two-party system has not served us well. … We cannot see beyond the us-versus-them mentality. So it's time to move beyond that psyche and look to do what's best for Utahns.'
Former New Jersey governor and EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman — who co-founded and co-chairs the national Forward Party alongside businessman and onetime presidential candidate Andrew Yang — also spoke Saturday, encouraging Utahns to break the stranglehold of the two-party system, which she said is more focused on winning than representing Americans.
'I honestly believe that we are within a hair of losing our democracy,' Whitman said. 'There is, to me, an unconscionable lack of respect for the rule of law, the lack of respect for the Constitution. … It's not about solving problems, it's about staying in power.'
She pointed to states like Utah, where most districts are largely controlled by 'one party,' the GOP, resulting in elections where 'voters don't have a choice. There's one candidate, and that's it. And that has never served the public.'
'When all an incumbent has to do is worry about their base in the primaries, they don't care about the rest of the people. To heck with it, and they don't represent the rest of the people when they get in,' Whitman said.
Utah senator announces he's leaving the Republican party, joining Utah Forward Party
Yang also issued a prepared statement in a news release issued by party leaders, pointing to Gallup polling that shows roughly 60% of Americans agree that the U.S. needs a third major party because the Republican and Democratic parties 'do such a poor job' of representing Americans.
'It's no wonder why,' Yang said. 'The existing parties have failed to address the biggest issues facing voters. People want job security and to plan for their retirement; they want their kids to be safe, they want to live in a nation of laws that protect them, they don't want to be told they need to hate their neighbors if they disagree with them on some policy position. They want their representatives to pay attention to their lives and listen to their needs.'
Instead, Yang said, 'the legacy parties are focused on maintaining power and the 'us versus them' fight that keeps their fundraising totals high.'
Yang said Utah is at the 'forefront' of the Forward Party's effort to build a '50-state movement.' So far, the Forward Party or an affiliate party is recognized in 13 states, Whitman said, compared to just five states two months ago. Plus, she said the party has 50 elected officeholders who have affiliated in some way with the Forward Party. Their goal, she said, is to be 'on the ballot in all states' by the next presidential election, in 2028.
'We are growing,' she said. 'We're growing fast. We're growing big.'
Thatcher, when he took the podium, told the crowd of roughly 250 that came to Saturday's convention that, 'you're not crazy.'
'You're not imagining it. Things are really, really bad right now,' said the former Republican senator — who in recent years became no stranger to bucking the GOP party line before he unaffiliated last month. 'The absolute contempt coming from the (Utah) Legislature this year just completely blew my mind.'
Thatcher said for years he had been 'concerned about the direction' the Republican party was heading, 'but I always believed that the GOP would come back to its founding principles.'
However, when lawmakers tried to amend the Utah Constitution to weaken voters' ballot initiative powers and give the Legislature the ultimate and final say on all types of ballot initiatives with Amendment D — a ballot question the courts ultimately voided because its language written by GOP legislative leaders was misleading — Thatcher said that 'completely made it clear that it's not going to happen.'
'Because I believe the GOP has ceased to uphold the rule of law, because they are no longer grounded to the Constitution, and because they're not even following their own platform, which was why I joined them in the first place, they are no longer entitled to my support,' Thatcher said.
Instead, he said the Forward Party better 'respects my principles of rights, of reason, and of respect.'
'The Forward Party is different from anything I've ever seen before,' Thatcher said. 'It is why I feel so at home in this place that feels clean. I feel safe in this room. I feel respected in this room. I feel like I can disagree with someone and not have any name-calling or our tables flipping.'
More than anything, Thatcher said he joined the Forward Party because he wants 'to fight for people, for decency, for representation.'
'It is so freeing to stop saying 'we' as I talk about the completely crazy things that the (Republican) party is doing to people,' he said. 'But moreover, it feels so good to say 'we' as I talk about the crazy things the Forward Party is doing for people.
Below is the MOU approved by both parties on Saturday:
MOU - UUP Fwd Merger (Final) (1) signed
