The United States has never been a country friendly to third parties — especially progressive third parties. But the Working Families Party (WFP) has managed to escape the margins of American politics. The prominent left-wingers in Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman, are closely aligned with the WFP and routinely promote the party’s work. In New York, where it was founded, the Working Families Party remains a force, with its organizers and independent expenditures prized by Democrats in contested primaries.

Yet over the years, the union-based electoral vehicle has evolved, becoming something of a paradox: it is both stronger and weaker than it once was. It is stronger because the party has become a genuine online fundraising juggernaut, with a brand now known to millions of voters. It is weaker because a large chunk of its organized labor base has left, and it cannot credibly lay claim to being a member-driven, working-class political party.

Free from the often-conservatizing influence of New York’s unions, the Working Families Party has taken more chances on progressive candidates and tied its future to the constellation of nonprofit and advocacy organizations that now reach into the upper echelons of Democratic Party politics, such as the Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats.