Big Tent Party

The term Big Tent Party or catch all party, refers to the political definition to a political party that claims to represent a huge base of the electorate or society.

Often within big tent parties, it is common to see a huge variety of factions, groups and constituents. Big tent parties typically do well in elections, capitalising on the diverse nature of their base to secure big poll numbers. Both the Democrats and Republicans can be described as big tent parties. They both poll well in US elections and have a diverse range of factions that exist within them. For example the Democratic Party has a number of factions including the Progressive wing, Liberal wing, Centrist wing, Conservative wing, and Libertarian wing.

Parties in America which have not been big tent parties have not done well in national elections, as they don’t have the electoral base that the big tent parties do.