This is my annual appeal for creation of a new political party, this one to be focused on America’s suburbs. I call it the Democratic-Republican Party, to borrow the name of our nation’s first opposition party, created by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

At present in America there are political parties for urban and rural, small-town America, respectively, but none for suburbia.

The Democratic Party is liberal on social issues as well as on spending, which plays to urbanites. Donald Trump Republicanism is nativist and big on spending; this plays to small-town and rural America, which receives more government services than the other two, more prosperous geopolitical regions. In 2020, for example, farmers received more than 40% of their net income from the federal government.

Throughout history, the Democratic Party has been for the working person. But its present party leadership seems somehow incapable of proclaiming as much.

Neither party speaks for the suburbs, which tend to be moderate on social issues such as abortion rights and gun rights and more conservative on spending. Suburbanites also tend to have higher levels of postsecondary education and thus place a high value on educational achievement.

Based on six decades in and out of the political trenches, I observe that most Americans simply want order, harmony and prosperity in their lives. And, to be left alone as much as possible by governments, other than for Medicare and Social Security, which are absolute keepers.

Identification with the two major parties has been declining sharply. Forty-five percent of American voters now identify as independents, up from one-third just 20 years ago, according to a new Gallup survey. More than half of Gen Z and millennials say they are independent.

The obvious model for a new suburban-focused party is the Liberal-Democratic Party in the United Kingdom. This significant third party in United Kingdom politics holds 72 of 650 seats in Parliament and has been a major force in British politics for more than a century (originally, the Liberal Party). The Lib Dems are strong in pockets of the U.K., such as southwest London and the West Country of England, and in Wales. Voters in this party are highly educated, favor good government and electoral reforms, and tend to be moderate.

The major American parties are not likely to come back toward the middle to win elections. Extensive gerrymandering of districts has shifted many contests from the November general election to the spring primaries. Few voters participate in these once-preliminary contests, and the primaries tend to be dominated by the respective, activist wings of the parties. Moderates need not apply.

Democratic-Republican, or DR, is an appropriate name for the new party, as it would likely appeal to both disaffected Democrats and Republicans. The original party of Jefferson and Madison was, by the way, for the little guy, and small, limited national government (though they didn’t always practice what they preached).

I propose a slogan for the DRs: “Pursuing success for all Americans,” which every party should be championing. This is not so powerful as MAGA (which Trump appropriated from Reagan); nothing is, but both are aspirational and positive.

The new, suburban-centered party would be regional, certainly at first, focused on winning seats in Congress and our legislatures — just as the fledgling Republican Party was regional in 1854. The DRs couldn’t win, initially, in most rural or urban areas, just as the rural-based Illinois Republican Party today fares badly in the suburbs and Chicago.

The ideal national political figure to lead the Democratic-Republicans is Rahm Emanuel, the former Mr. Everything — congressman, chief of staff to Barack Obama, mayor of Chicago, ambassador to Japan. A lifelong Democrat, Emanuel has no future in his old party. First, he is too moderate, and second, as mayor, he mishandled the aftermath of the police killing of Laquan McDonald, which has turned off Black Democratic leaders.

In recent months, Emanuel has been opining in conservative organs such as The Wall Street Journal about how America has lost its focus on education, the fount of all success, and on the importance of rather traditional family values.

Friends of mine who have worked, respectively, for Emanuel as well as with him report he is smart as a whip, intense, energetic, a tough taskmaster yet decent. Good qualities for a party leader.

Poll after poll shows that American voters yearn for something different. The present, polarized major parties have only themselves to blame for a putative new party that speaks broadly to positive goals. Let’s pursue success for all Americans.

Jim Nowlan has been an Illinois Republican precinct committeeman, state legislator, statewide candidate, campaign manager for U.S. Senate and presidential candidates, senior aide to three unindicted Illinois governors and chair of the Illinois Executive Ethics Commission. He lives in Princeton, Illinois.

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https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/02/opinion-political-party-suburbs/