Americans are increasingly frustrated with both the Democratic and Republican parties, according to polls—and former Senator Joe Manchin believes he has a solution.
The Democratic Party’s net favorability stood at -17 points, while the Republican Party’s favorability was -19 points in the latest poll from YouGov and The Economist, the latest sign that many Americans are unhappy with what is functionally a binary choice on their ballots, given that independent and third-party candidates typically garner only a tiny sliver of votes and threaten to act as a spoiler in close elections.
But Manchin—who represented West Virginia as a Democrat from 2010 to 2025, first as a Democrat and later as an independent starting in 2024—is working to give Americans a third option in the November midterm elections.
He is launching the Independent Leadership Council, an effort to support independent candidates running for office. He told CNN he is “trying to get a person who can be committed to – and totally committed to – being an independent with an independent voice,” but not start a new party.
He met in West Virginia with candidates including California Representative Kevin Kiley, a former Republican who left the party earlier in 2026; Seth Bodnar, an independent running for Senate in Montana; and Michael Bridgford, an independent running for Congress in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District.
Independent candidates see an opening to win in the 2026 midterms. In addition to those three, independents like Dan Osborn in Nebraska’s Senate race, Todd Achilles in Idaho’s Senate race, Rick Bennett in Maine’s governor race and Bill Hill in Alaska’s Congressional race have garnered national attention.
But history suggests independents may have a difficult time winning elections.
Independents have consistently tried but have fallen short in elections over recent cycles. Still, there are some independents who have managed to win—including Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Angus King of Maine, both of whom caucus with Democrats.
Americans Fed Up With Both Parties: Polls
Both Democrats and Republicans are facing poor favorability ratings ahead of the midterms, though Democrats are hopeful that President Donald Trump’s crashing approval rating and frustration over the economy will help them win seats in November.
The YouGov poll found that just 37 percent of Americans approve of the Democratic Party, compared to 36 percent who approve of the Republican Party. Among independents—a crucial voting bloc—24 percent viewed the Democratic Party favorably, while 20 percent viewed the GOP favorably, according to the poll.
It surveyed 1,568 adults from June 5-8, 2026.
The latest Harvard/HarrisX poll found similar disapproval for both parties, with 43 percent saying they viewed each party favorably.
Independents viewed Democrats slightly better than Republicans, with 33 percent approving of the GOP and 35 percent approving of Democrats in the poll, which surveyed 1,776 registered voters from July 11-12, 2026 and had a margin of error of ±2.3 percentage points.
Despite Frustration, Independents Face Difficult Headwinds
Despite many Americans disliking both major parties, independent candidates will face headwinds in the midterms.
The structure of the U.S. electoral system, a first-past-the-post system using single-member districts, makes it difficult for independents to win, Jacob Neiheisel, a professor of political science at the University at Buffalo, told Newsweek on Friday.
“The support for these independent candidates tends to evaporate when people are in the voting booth, and they’re thinking through things,” he said. “It’s just because independent candidates have a vanishingly small chance of winning. People will support them in the abstract, but on the day of the election, they’re typically more willing to pull the lever for the least bad, in their eyes, major party candidate.”
Neiheisel said he is skeptical that independents will be able to win in the midterms, noting that similar efforts, such as No Labels, have struggled to gain traction despite significant financial investment in the past.
“They came up against the realities of a political system that really is tailored to a two-party solution, and they come up against the strategic logic that individuals confront in the voting booth, which is there’s just not a lot of chance,” he said.
The possibility lies in races where one of the major parties is not running a candidate, such as Nebraska, where Democrats have coalesced around Osborn.
Jared McDonald, professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, told Newsweek it’s “easier to unify against something than to unify for something.”
“A lot of people are unhappy with the parties, but they are unhappy for a multitude of reasons. When everyone has their own reason, they can't agree on what type of independent candidate would be best,” he said.
He said 2026 could present opportunities for independents due to Trump being “deeply unpopular” and Democrats having a “fairly toxic brand,” pointing to Montana and Nebraska as two states where independents could do well.
“Yet, I think efforts like Manchin's can never achieve the lofty goals he is proposing,” he said. “We have had independents win statewide elections. Look at Bernie Sanders in Vermont and Angus King in Maine. But they still have to caucus with a party if they want to get anything done. Manchin is proposing total independence with regard to voting, but getting things done requires coalition-building, and you can't do that without a party.”
Record Number of Americans Identify as Independents
According to a Gallup survey from January 2026, a record number of Americans identify as independents, rather than affiliating with either party. Forty-five percent said they were an independent, up from 43 percent in 2024; one decade earlier in 2016, that number was 39 percent. In 2006, 34 percent said they were independents.
That leaves independent voters as a critical voting bloc in elections—but the majority still either vote for Democrats or Republicans, rather than looking at third-party candidates. Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris received more than 98 percent of the vote in 2024, meaning other candidates received only 2 percent of the vote.
Independent voters make up a plurality of the electorate in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon and Rhode Island, according to Ballotpedia.
Of those, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina are all viewed as among the closest battlegrounds in the country, where independents are especially important.
Can Independents Win in Midterms? What Polls Show
Polling suggests some independents could be competitive in November.
In Montana, where Democratic candidate Alani Bankhead and Bodnar have been engaged in a standoff amid calls for one to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote against Republican Kurt Alme, a recent Tavern Research poll suggested a potentially close race.
The poll found that in a two-way race, Alme and Bodnar both received 50 percent support; but Alme led Bankhead by 12 points, 56 percent to 44 percent. In a three-way race, Alme received 49 percent, compared to Bankhead’s 27 percent and Bodnar’s 25 percent. It polled 400 likely voters from June 16-19, 2026 and had a margin of error of ±6.1 percentage points.
Bodnar told Newsweek about his campaign in an interview earlier in July.
"National political leaders are not working to quell the fires of division in this country...They're bringing that gasoline, they're pouring it on that fire of division, they're doing it deliberately, [and] they're going it strategically," he said. "An angry and a divided electorate is easier to control than an informed and a united electorate."
A Tavern Research poll similarly showed independent candidate Dan Osborn in a competitive position in Nebraska. The poll showed him with 47 percent against