FAQ

People often hear the word moderate and think it means weak, indecisive, or unwilling to take a stand. Someone lost in a bland, shifting middle.

At the Free State Party, we believe moderation is not the absence of conviction, but both a governing and a values-based ideology. We call it Principled Moderation: moderation with a backbone. Click here for the full description.

Everyone says third parties never work. And at first glance, it seems obvious. All the “smart” people “know” that new parties can’t break through. How do they know this? Because that’s what all the “smart” people say.

We don’t agree. But why not? Where’s our evidence that something different is possible?

Our simple argument is that it has worked, and it has worked in Kansas. Click here for the full answer.

We get it. Moderates don’t usually start movements.

That’s the reputation, anyway.

Moderates are reasonable. Practical. Not prone to shouting. They value stability. They listen before they speak. And they don’t usually organize. In a political climate where outrage drives attention, moderates often seem out of place.

But that’s exactly why they matter now. Click here for our full reply.

In 2024, 40 percent of Kansas House races went uncontested. In 2025, it was 50 percent.

That’s not democracy. That’s a system protecting itself. We’re not spoilers when the two parties can’t even be bothered to run against each other.

We are starting small and focusing on those races where voters have no credible choice in the general election.

What we see isn’t a spoiler movement. It’s an opening.

No. To become a member of the Free State Party, two things have to happen. The first is that we need about 20,000 signatures so we can be certified as a Kansas party. The second is that you then have to visit the Secretary of State’s website or your county clerk’s office and change your affiliation. Signing up with us just keeps you informed and let’s all of us working on this know that we are not alone. So, sign up!

Not surprisingly, the two main parties don’t want competition so they have made it very hard to become a party in Kansas. We need 2% of the votes cast for all candidates for governor in the 2022 general election. That means we need about 20,000 valid signatures in writing, not online. We will have six months (once we start) to gather those signatures.

When direct election primaries were put in place about 100 years ago, the move was viewed as a reform to give “the people” more of say instead of closed conventions. Primaries did that but eventually smaller group of single-issue and highly motivated activist factions realized they could take a party over in the primaries because their people will show up. Moderates don’t have a good track record of showing up for primaries. It is a particular problem because Kansas has closed primaries where you must be registered in that party to vote. Moderates tend to not like either party very much so many are registered as unaffiliated. Click here for more of why we think a new party is necessary.

The original Free State Party was organized in 1855 as the first party in the Kansas Territory. It was organized to keep Kansas from becoming a slave state. Neither of the then main parties, the Democrats or the Whigs, were adequately addressing slavery so Kansans started their own. They, and similar parties in other states, eventually merged into a new national Republican party.

We are proud of our state’s anti-slavery birth, and we find common cause in starting a party when neither of the existing two parties are addressing the pressing issues facing our state and country.