From staff reports
Five county residents have been appointed members of the Beaufort County Forward Party Committee, and will lead the party’s organizing and electoral activities in Beaufort County.
Named to the Beaufort County Committee were David Atwell of Hilton Head Island, Robert Hooper of Bluffton, William Griffith of Ladys Island, Najmah Thomas of from St. Helena Island, and Charles Newton, also of St. Helena Island. Newton will serve as interim chairperson.
“The Forward Party has emerged as a direct result of the polarization in the U.S. political system, at all levels,” Newton in a Dec. 20 media release. “More voters today describe themselves as ‘Independent” than ever before – 49% of the electorate according to a Gallup poll in April – a number equal to the total of those who say they are Republicans or Democrats.
“These centrist, independent voters, tired of politics as usual and lack of choice at election time, are looking for a home. The Forward Party is it,” Newton said, “and we are building a new party around voter concerns rather than top-down party dictates.”
The Forward Party is organizing in all 46 S.C. counties, and to date, has active committees in 14 counties representing 80% of the SC population – Greenville, Spartanburg, Lexington, York, Lancaster, Aiken, Edgefield, Richland, Florence, Horry, Georgetown, Berkeley, Charleston and Beaufort.
The Forward Party, first organized nationally in 2021, gained ballot access in S.C. in October. The Party is not running a presidential candidate in 2024, but will instead focus on local contests and statewide electoral issues. The Party seeks fundamental reform to restore trust in states’ electoral processes, including adoption of ranked-choice voting, open primaries and independent redistricting beyond the control of elected legislatures
The Forward Party is nationally co-chaired by Andrew Yang, an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and politician who was a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, and former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, formerly a Republican and the first female head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
For more information, visit https://www.forwardparty.com/ or https://www.southcarolinaforwardparty.com/.
