OPINION: Elon Musk’s ‘America Party’ will do nothing more than split the GOP vote in 2026
The tech innovator’s move to create an ‘America Party’ has stirred debate on the history of third-parties and whether Musk truly believes he can make a difference politically
Opinion-Analysis by Summer Lane | July 8, 2025
Last week, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk launched a third-party platform, the “America Party,” in a symbolic gesture of defiance against the ironclad two-party system of Democrats and Republicans, but his announcement has drawn a great deal of criticism amid the tech innovator’s very public feud with President Donald Trump.
Musk – once a staunch ally and advisor to the president – seemingly flipped the script just a few weeks ago, vocalizing his opposition to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” and vowing to primary any congressperson who voted for it.
Now, in the wake of the legislation being signed into law, Musk has taken up a political battle cry against Republicans and the Trump administration by creating a third party, railing against the “waste” of a “one-party system.”
As reported by LindellTV, President Trump this week slammed the move, noting that third parties have “never succeeded in the United States – The System seems not designed for them.”
He warned of “Total DISRUPTION & CHAOS” that could be introduced by Musk’s actions, and he’s not the only one making this argument.
While the beef between Trump and Musk lacks full context to the objective observer, one thing is crystal clear: Musk has an axe to grind, and he seems to have set his sights on splitting the vote for the 2026 midterm elections.
Unfortunately for the Republican Party, the only thing a third party is likely to do is create a Democrat supermajority, which seems to be Musk’s point, despite his insistence that he’s doing this for the good of democracy.
Third parties – an unfortunate history of failure
Most Americans would likely love to see a break from the two-party political system, but sadly, every attempt at doing so in the past has ended in dismal failure. Who can forget Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, who was reasonably popular among Americans but managed to throw a wrench into then-President George Bush’s chances of winning reelection by taking nearly 20 million votes out of the Republican popular vote pool?
That year, a Democrat named Bill Clinton won the presidency.
“The inability of third parties to attract more than a tiny fraction of the votes cast across offices is noticeable even compared to other democracies with two dominant parties, such as the U.K.,” observed a cadre of political professors in “The Decline of Third Party Voting in the United States.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – now the Secretary of Health and Human Services – was blocked from taking a legitimate shot at winning the Democrat nomination in 2024, forcing him to go Independent. He couldn’t acquire enough support to win, and ended up joining forces with President Trump’s reformed GOP platform.
Had he maintained his Independent campaign, Kennedy could have taken anywhere from 5-15 percent of the vote with him, costing the Republican Party just enough of an edge to lose several key states to Democrats.
Even President Teddy Roosevelt attempted to split away from the Republican Party in 1912. After failing to win his party’s nomination for a third term, he ran on the “Progressive Party” platform, but lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
The Republican vote was split between Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, handing Wilson the win.
Indeed, third-party candidates historically hurt Republicans and help Democrats.
Musk’s ‘America Party’ will sink or swim
Regardless of historical precedent, Musk’s “America Party” is likely to do little more than cause vote splits in key districts President Trump needs to hold the majority in the House and Senate.
To be fair, there is some support for the idea of creating a third party, but it seems silly to splinter the GOP platform – at long last unified under the America First agenda – at such a critical moment in history. The momentum is with the Trump administration, and it needs to be maintained.
In 2024, Gallup found that 58 percent of U.S. adults agreed that a “third major party is needed in the U.S.,” although that percentage was down five points from 2023.
Clearly, Americans don’t love the two-party system, but historically, breaking away from one of the two major platforms guarantees Democrat victory.
And, as many conservative voices have astutely pointed out, President Trump has smartly used the existing vehicle of the GOP platform to form a new America First party anyway. It may be unofficial, but the agenda couldn’t be more different than the Republican Party of a decade ago.
Human Events Senior Editor and conservative personality Jack Posobiec noted on X, “America does have a 3rd Party. It just happens to operate within the Republican Party. It is called MAGA, and draws support on trade and immigration from outside the GOP. The uniparty oppose this. This is the state of American politics since 2016[.]”
A third party, created just a handful of months into President Trump’s second term, is not meant to elevate the needs or desires of the American people, but rather, it’s meant to harm America First candidates in the rapidly approaching 2026 midterm elections. And perhaps on a more personal level, Musk seems to want to damage President Trump’s legacy by introducing this thorn in the Republican Party’s side.
“Everybody likes to get as much power as circumstances allow, and nobody will vote for a self-denying ordinance,” Lord Acton famously said, and perhaps this is why Musk feels spurned. Trump says his former ally is upset by his administration’s long-promised action to terminate the electric vehicle mandate, which was part of his campaign platform long before Musk came into the picture.
“I have campaigned on this for two years and, quite honestly, when Elon gave me his total and unquestioned Endorsement, I asked him whether or not he knew that I was going to terminate the EV Mandate – It was in every speech I made, and in every conversation I had. He said he had no problems with that – I was very surprised!” Trump wrote in a recent statement.
It is unfortunate that Elon Musk has chosen this route after going to bat for President Trump so powerfully in 2024 and during his time with DOGE, but it is never too late to reverse course.
Photo: Adobe Stock
