The Working Families Party (WFP) bills itself as an organization whose political strategy is bigger, bolder, and better than others. And in many ways, the party has been a remarkable success story in a political environment that yielded few victories for progressive forces.

The WFP was set up in 1998 to be an independent, progressive party that used New York’s fusion voting system (which allows endorsement across ballot lines) to challenge bad Democrats and extract concessions from others without being dismissed by voters as a spoiler. Beyond the favorable voting system, New York, a union stronghold, was a good starting point for the experiment. The party had support from labor unions, like AFSCME DC-37, the United Auto Workers, and the Communication Workers of America. It also had backing from progressive advocacy and organizing groups like Citizen Action and ACORN.

It had, in other words, a social base that most left groups could only aspire to.