A presidential candidate, two congressional candidates and several dozen disparate-but-like-minded advocates gathered in a suburban Denver Marriott on Thursday morning to discuss a political movement that they believe is having its moment.

At least, that’s how attendees at the 2024 Independent National Convention felt. Bolstered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s now-paused independent presidential run and convinced of high dissatisfaction with America’s political status quo, several attendees and speakers said interest in independent candidates and movements was accelerating.

They lambasted the country’s dominant two-party political system and pointed to data about the growing number of Americans — and Coloradans — who identify as independent.

“The third-party movement is strong and it’s growing, and I think that’s because people are so disillusioned and disgusted with the two major parties and the political status quo,” Ron Tupa, a former Democratic state lawmaker, said in an interview. He’s now running a longshot bid as a Unity Party candidate against U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Democrat.

Speakers at the three-day event at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, which ended Thursday night, included (or were set to include) Andrew Yang, the former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and entrepreneur who went on to launch the Forward Party; former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich; several tech and wellness entrepreneurs; and a handful of alumni from the Kennedy campaign.

Kennedy himself was supposed to headline the convention, but he pulled out. Former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson spoke in his place Wednesday night.

Some attendees and groups advocated for alternative voting methods they thought would help break up America’s two-party political stasis. Blake Huber, the Denver-based presidential candidate for the Approval Voting Party, laughed that he tells people not to vote for him (though he said his ego may require him to vote for himself).

He was running, as he had in 2020, to bolster support for “approval voting” — a system under which voters are allowed to select all the candidates they support in a given race, rather than just one.

“You want independents to get their true level of support? You want approval voting,” said Huber, who was wearing blue sandals and an impossible-to-miss orange T-shirt that showed how approval voting worked on the back.

A variety of minor parties were present, including the Libertarian Party of Colorado and its executive director, James Wiley, who’s running for U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s current seat on the Western Slope. So were Huber’s party and the Alliance Party.

Kennedy’s campaign had a booth, too, complete with a life-sized cutout. Around the corner was a booth for a Sept. 11 conspiracy group. Outside, a Tesla Cybertruck — emblazoned with cryptocurrency logos and images of former President Donald Trump and Kennedy, who’s now backing Trump — sat parked by the curb.

“I think we’re reaching a tipping point,” Tupa said optimistically of independent candidates, groups and voters.

It’s true that more Americans view themselves as independents, and in Colorado, unaffiliated voters now greatly outnumber Democrats and Republicans. But that doesn’t equate to a unified political swell, particularly when many self-identified independents still back one of the major parties — and when the existing independent movement is “scattered,” as one activist put it.

Case in point: Tupa still describes himself as a progressive, and before he spoke to a small crowd about building independent political power, another speaker — Michael Maxsenti, who’s supported minor parties elsewhere — told the room that they should vote for Trump.

“If you really understand Bobby (Kennedy Jr.) and what’s going on, you have to suck it up,” Maxsenti said. “Vote for Trump and hope and pray, as we do, that Trump is truly a changed individual — and, now, that he’s learned his lessons from his first opportunity.”

For his part, Yang posted on the social platform X Wednesday: “I’m an Independent Forwardist who will be voting for Kamala Harris in November.”

Several attendees credited Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, with giving a boost to independent and minor party candidates and movements; Kennedy buttons and hats were common Thursday. But, as onetime Colorado 5th Congressional District candidate Katrina Nguyen noted, Kennedy initially sought to run as a Democrat. Then, after securing ballot access in multiple states, he (mostly) dropped out late last month and endorsed Trump — a three-time presidential candidate for one of the major parties.

“There are some people who I don’t think they necessarily care as much about growing the independent, third-party movement as they just care about having a voice within the two major party system,” she said. (It was Nguyen who described the movement as “scattered.”)

In his morning talk, Tupa had urged attendees to donate money to minor party and unaffiliated candidates. That prompted Huber, a self-described green-libertarian, to call out that he’d just donated $100 to Tupa — a progressive “of the left,” in his telling — and that he would give $5 more for every donation Tupa received at the convention Thursday.

Nguyen echoed a similar sentiment: If independent political movements are indeed having a moment now, mutual support for those movements is required to capitalize upon it.

“Our project will help third-party candidates that I don’t even like, or third parties that I don’t even like. But that’s not the point. I want them to have a chance,” she said. “At this point, no one has a chance.”

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Originally Published: September 20, 2024 at 6:00 a.m.