Independent and third-party candidates have won governorships, Senate seats, House seats, and thousands of state and local offices across the country. The record is longer than most people realize. The wins don't make national headlines the way presidential races do, and they rarely fit the tidy narrative that the two major parties prefer to tell about themselves. But they happened. They're still happening. And the candidates who pulled it off share a recognizable set of traits.

The Wins

Start with the most recent and most instructive case. Dan Osborn, a union mechanic and former local union president at a Kellogg plant in Omaha, ran as an independent for Senate in Nebraska in 2024. Nebraska is about as red as it gets: Donald Trump carried it by over 20 points. Democrats didn't even field a Senate candidate because they'd essentially given up on the state. Osborn came within 6 points of the Republican incumbent, dramatically outperforming every Democratic Senate candidate in the country relative to expectations. He's running again in 2026, and as of mid-2025, he's in a statistical tie with his Republican opponent.

Bernie Sanders won Vermont's House seat in the 1990 election running as an independent, defeating both the Democratic and Republican candidates. He'd previously served as mayor of Burlington for eight years. He held that House seat until he moved to the Senate in 2006. He never ran as a Democrat until he sought the presidential nomination in 2016, and even then he returned to his independent status once the primary was over.

Angus King won the Maine governorship twice as an independent, in 1994 and 1998, then won a U.S. Senate seat in 2012, also as an independent. He's held that Senate seat since.

Jesse Ventura won the Minnesota governorship in 1998 running on the Reform Party ticket, defeating both major party candidates. He had no prior political experience beyond a stint as mayor of Brooklyn Park. His margin was decisive.

Go back further and the examples multiply. The Socialist Party of America elected more than 1,000 local officials across 353 American cities and towns in the early 20th century. Milwaukee elected a socialist mayor three times. The Populist Party in the 1890s won governorships, Senate seats, and a significant number of state legislative seats across the Midwest and South before it was absorbed into the Democratic Party. The Republican Party itself started as a third party in 1854 and had a president elected six years later.

What They Have in Common

Look across these wins, separated by decades and geography, and a pattern emerges.

They ran on material conditions, not ideology. Osborn talked about wages, jobs, and who politicians actually work for. Sanders built his early Vermont career on economic inequality and corporate power. Ventura ran on fiscal responsibility and cutting through political nonsense. King campaigned on pragmatic governance over partisan fighting. They skipped abstract ideological frameworks and didn't try to fit neatly into left-right boxes. They talked about things that affect people's lives directly: what you take home, what you can afford, whether the game is rigged against you and who's doing the rigging.

They named a specific enemy. Osborn's platform calls out billionaires who "control Washington" and have "built a billionaire economy." Sanders has attacked the billionaire class consistently for four decades. Ventura positioned himself against career politicians and a political establishment that talked down to voters. The wins came from clear, specific arguments about who was causing the problem rather than vague calls for unity and common ground.

They had personal credibility that couldn't be faked. Osborn led a successful strike. Sanders spent years as a local official before moving to the state level. Ventura was a Navy veteran and well-known public figure. King had a long career in business and energy policy before running for office. Each of them had a biography that matched the argument they were making. A union mechanic who says he'll fight for workers is a different kind of candidate than a career politician who says the same thing.

They ran where the major party brand was already weak. Nebraska hadn't had a competitive Senate race in years. Vermont in the early 1990s had a political culture that was already skeptical of party structures. Minnesota in 1998 had two major party candidates voters found uninspiring. Maine's independent streak goes back generations. None of these wins came by trying to outcompete the major parties on their own turf. They came from finding the terrain where a credible independent candidate could actually win the argument.

They didn't try to be everything to everyone on social issues. Osborn is clear about his economic positions and deliberately leaves room for voters who don't share every progressive social position. Sanders has said explicitly that building a winning coalition means working with people who disagree with you on some things. Ventura's libertarian-leaning positions on both social and economic issues cut across traditional party lines. The candidates who succeeded didn't demand ideological purity from their coalition. They asked for agreement on the things that mattered most to people's daily lives.

What This Means for the Labor Party

The Labor Party isn't building toward a presidential run. The plan is to do what the successful independent candidates actually did: start where the ground is favorable, build credibility through real wins, and grow from there.

State and local races come first, where the barriers to entry are lower and where the major parties have often given up or stopped competing seriously. The candidates the Labor Party is looking to recruit have the kind of personal credibility that can't be manufactured by a campaign consultant. A nurse who's watched the hospital cut staff while billing patients more. A small business owner who's watched corporate chains hollow out Main Street. A warehouse worker who knows what a 12-hour shift actually costs. These are people whose biographies match the argument they'd be making.

The Dan Osborn model is replicable. He nearly won because he ran the right kind of campaign in exactly the kind of place where independent politics can work, and because voters who'd been written off responded to a candidate who was actually talking about their lives. Nebraska's politics made it hard. The model still worked.

That's replicable. That's what the Labor Party is building.

Find out how to get involved at votelabor.org.