Dog sniffing flowers near a Maryland flag

Maryland Forward Party is local at our core, supporting local communities in addressing their priority issues.

The Maryland Forward Party, in association with the national Forward Party, will redefine the political processes; supporting candidates and advocating for policies which collaboratively build a Maryland where we all want to live.

"We are dedicated to serving our communities, to really listening, and then actually working towards solutions not just campaigning on them."

PJ Benenati

Maryland Forward Party, Chair

Our Mission and Values

Better Governance through Bottom-Up Problem Solving

Maryland Forward Party supports enabling citizens and their elected officials to pursue multiple simultaneous solutions in order to find the best path(s) Forward and better meet the nuanced needs of each community.

Partisan bickering over solutions and one-size-fits-all policy platforms are not effective in our communities, which are growing more diverse and complex every year. In order to build confidence in our democracy, elected officials must also be held accountable for their choices and subject to the same laws that they impose on others.

Protect the Rights of All People

Maryland Forward Party works to ensure that all people retain their inherent right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, under the United States Constitution and the Constitution of Maryland, and the Bill of Rights.

Everyone has the right to be safe and flourish in the places where we learn, work, and live. We oppose all acts of hatred, harassment, or discrimination that seek to marginalize, restrict, or diminish the lives of others. We support diversity, the freedom of choice, and the equity of opportunity for everyone.

More Collaboration, Less Conflict

Maryland Forward Party supports efforts to listen and incorporate all points of view into the political process.

The people of Maryland are tired of choosing between the lesser of two evils. We work to reform and dismantle systems intended to suppress the voice of voters, divide communities, and entrench tribalism.

Ranked Choice Voting

Problems

Our current “plurality” voting system awards the position to the candidate who gets the most votes. While this appears logical, in reality the winner of any race with more than two candidates is often elected by a minority of voters due to a “spoiler effect”. Voters who might be happy with several potential candidates are forced to choose only one. They also cannot express their dissatisfaction with other candidates. This disregard for second and third choices means that it is possible for candidates to win with only 20%, 30%, or 40% support, not a majority.

Solutions

Maryland Forward identifies Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) as our primary voting procedure reform, though other variations may also be considered depending on the needs and opportunities within a community. Also called “instant runoff elections”, ranked choice voting allows voters to choose their first, second, third, etc. choices on the same ballot. The result is a traceable record that every winning candidate was approved by at least 50% of the voters.

RCV in various forms has been in use in the United States and other democratic countries for over 100 years. It is used in Alaska state, congressional, and presidential elections; in Maine for congressional and presidential elections; in Washington DC for all elections; and in various localities throughout the United States (source: Wikipedia. Need updated info, post-2024 elections). We believe that RCV will require candidates to appeal to a broader segment of the community and will greatly reduce the animosity we currently see in our tribalized politics.

All-Candidates Primaries

Problems

Even though our primary elections are publicly funded, 20% of Maryland taxpayers (approximately 900,000 people) are currently not permitted to participate, because of closed primaries. In addition, those closed primaries only represent the top 2 political parties in the state, conferring obvious bias to voters.

Solutions

Single All-Candidates Primaries will allow all candidates to run simultaneously regardless of political party and will show the breadth of candidate possibilities to the constituency. All registered voters will be eligible to participate and a pre-set number of top selected candidates proceed to the general election (e.g., top 4). Forward believes this will encourage a more diverse slate of candidates, discourage extremes, and allow elected officials independence to disagree with their own parties without being primaried.

Independent Redistricting

Problems

Maryland is among the top 5 worst politically gerrymandered states in the country. In most states, redistricting is performed by the legislature, which means that the party in power normally draws new legislative districts in their favor. This normally means that voters in minority groups are not fairly represented in the legislature or congress. We should be choosing our elected officials, they should not be choosing us.

Solutions

An Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) is a body separate from the legislature that is responsible for drawing legislative or congressional districts. They must adhere to strict criteria, such as complying with federal and state constitutions, equal population, protecting language and racial minorities, partisan fairness, compactness and contiguity, among others, thereby removing bias from the process. Effective IRCs also require the commission to hold public hearings, make the data being used to draw maps publicly available, and allow voters to submit maps to the commission online. In 2021, 22 states utilized IRCs to draw legislative and/or state congressional maps. (source: Campaignlegal.org).

Vacancies Reform

Problems

25% of Maryland’s current State Legislature initially entered their position by bypassing the election and campaigning process. This was done through legal loopholes in our election laws. Maryland state law currently allows vacancies in the legislative body to be filled by a political party through appointments from within their own ranks. On the surface this seems to be a logical solution, however this process is being abused by strategically vacating legislative seats, prior to an election, filling that seat from within that political party’s loyal ranks, and then easily winning the upcoming election, since incumbencies regularly win elections by over 90%. This process bypasses Maryland Voters and our democracy.

Solutions

Maryland Forward Party supports the use of Special Elections or Citizen Assemblies as an alternative to appointments. Citizen Assemblies convene a much smaller subset of voters to represent the vacated district, chosen randomly using the same demographic information as the voting populace in a manner similar to Jury Duty. The result is the same as a Special Election but at a small fraction of the price of a Special Election. It also ensures that the winner is chosen by the people of that vacated district instead of by party leaders. These types of reform will ensure Maryalnd voters are deciding who represents them in the State House, rather than a small group of in-power insiders.

Community Priorities

Problems

We recognize that the various communities (e.g., Rural, Suburban, Urban, Faith Communities, Immigrant Residents, LGBTQ+, Parents & Guardians, Racial & Ethnic Minority Groups, Seniors, Small Businesses, Specially Abled, Unions & Professional Associations, Veterans & Veteran Familles, Women, Young Voters) have issues that require our attention. We also recognize that our small group does not have enough expertise to identify and define specific solutions to these problems and that these communities are better able to do that themselves.

Solutions

Maryland Forward Party will sponsor Community Groups (the above listed are a start and can be increased as needed) to identify issues important to them and bring forward solutions they wish to be acted upon by the Party. In this way, we live by our “bottom-up” solutions and are not dictating “top-down” priorities. These groups are open to all Maryland Forward Party Members and will provide additional legislative priorities on which our team will focus. We will update this list quarterly as it grows.

Our Priorities

Maryland Forward Party determines priority issues to focus advocacy and legislative efforts on alongside community members. Then, the Party aligns with candidates who's policies plan to address the issues, allowing voters to decide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Officially, not yet.

Nationally and locally, we are still considered “political organizations." Both the national organization and our Maryland team are actively working towards official ballot access where we will respectively be considered official political parties. Our supporters, known as “Forwardists,” will then have the opportunity to change their voting registration to the Forward Party. As an official party we will support Forward candidates and elected officials, who in turn will prioritize local bottom-up governance and problem-solving.

The National Forward Party is responsible for establishing the high level values for guiding the Party. They also provide guidance and resources to the state organizations, as needed. The national Party does not control a top-down policy platform agenda and instead relies on the individual states to identify their own local priority issues, based on local community engagement.

The State Forward Parties, including Maryland, are responsible for engaging in our communities to better understand local priorities and to use that data to inform our local legislative priorities. Elected officials and candidates then take stances and propose solutions on these priority issues.

In Maryland, we are forming local teams at the county and local club level, and also have 5 central committees (Legislative Affairs, Candidates, Outreach & Engagement, Operations, and Compliance) to coordinate efforts and help support local initiatives.
The Maryland Forward Party stands opposed to many of the policies and practices of the Trump administration, and we are committed to improving the lives of those here in Maryland.

We focus on local opportunities where we can positively influence change and also respond to the impacts made by the federal government to those in Maryland. We also work to support local, state and federal candidates and elected officials who can propose legislation to help balance any negative influences that come from the federal government.
The Maryland Forward Party is still growing!

Having officially formed in Maryland in March 2023, we are building this movement from the ground up and we are still actively developing and expanding our brand. We hope that as we grow, so too will our reputation for prioritizing local priorities and supporting candidates and legislative efforts who align with resolving these local issues.

As of May 26, 2025, we have local leadership teams established in 9 counties across the state. Those local teams are focused on local outreach and engagement to help spread our exposure and influence.
Forward Party is structurally different from every other political party.

Many Marylanders feel that the top-down politics of the major parties have grown too extreme and no longer represent our everyday needs. Our bottom-up approach means that our priority issues evolve based on the needs of our communities, an approach that connects with many of those same voters.

The Forward Party is not looking to be another “Third Party,” We are instead looking across America, not at the seven Swing States, but at the 43 other states that are dominated solely by one Party or another.

We plan to become the prime alternative party in these 43 states, including Maryland.
It is important for individuals to have issues they passionately care about, and we want to know how you feel as we learn which issues are among your top priorities. As a Party, we work to understand the collective needs of our communities and then those needs become our priorities.

This means that the needs in Garrett County and Baltimore City, while they may be different, are equally important and require equal care in resolving.

Our focus isn’t deciding the policies of the Party, but rather empowering voters to compare candidates’ proposed solutions to see who is most aligned to meet the needs within their community and exercise their voice at the ballot box in support of their preferred candidates.

To do this, Maryland Forward Party intentionally only identifies these key issues and looks to local candidates and elected officials to take positions on these issues. By doing so, we encourage more nuanced problem-solving from among our elected officials, resulting in better solutions to meet the needs for the most people. Ultimately, this means that Forward could potentially support multiple candidates in the same election, all with different approaches to resolving priority issues.
As tools to delivering better bottom-up governance, we support election and voting reforms including Ranked Choice Voting, Single All-candidate Primaries, Independent Redistricting Commissions, and Legislative Vacancy Reforms.

We also support local priority issues, with increasing community outreach & engagement as we grow. Local issues will vary from community to community. We will always try to represent the largest and most diverse audience we can and will work within the community to evaluate both legislative and grassroots advocacy efforts.

Read more about our legislative priorities here.
In both 2023 and 2024, the Maryland Forward tracked and testified on legislation in the Maryland State Legislative Session. In 2023, we provided testimony on 4 bills; one of which passed. In 2024, we tracked 41 bills and testified on 17 of them.

We are continuing to meet with state and local legislators and executives to advocate on behalf of our legislative priorities. We are also working within and leading statewide coalition efforts on targeted reforms including ranked choice voting and legislative vacancy reform. Through these coalitions we work to coordinate legislative/grassroots efforts, share resources, align messaging, and focus initiatives.
We want to hear from you and your community!

Please feel free to complete this brief survey to let us know what's important to you, and please share this survey with others.

We are also meeting with local businesses, organizations, associations, institutions, clubs and other community groups to learn more about their collective priority issues. If you have an organization you think we should be connecting with, please reach out to us here.
The best way to stay updated about who Maryland Forward Party is supporting and affiliated with is to visit our Candidates & Affiliates page.

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Why Forward?

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"Until very recently, I was unaware that there was an actual third party that aligned with my views, leading me to believe the only way I could be a voice not beholden to a party, was to remain unaffiliated."

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