major party
nounDefinition of major party
: a political party having electoral strength sufficient to permit it to win control of a government usually with comparative regularity and when defeated to constitute the principal opposition to the party in power
Examples of major party in a Sentence
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The primary grant for major party candidates is $1.35 million under the Citizens’ Election Program, which Ganim was ruled ineligible for because of his felony public corruption conviction during his first stint as mayor of the state’s largest city. — Neil Vigdor, courant.com, "Joe Ganim Approaches $800K Fundraising Mark In Governor's Race," 9 July 2018 But the results of Tuesday night's primary elections have essentially assured that will change this year: In one district, both major party nominees are women. — Amelia Harnish, refinery29.com, "Pennsylvania Will Send A Woman To Congress — Which Hasn't Happened Since 2015," 16 May 2018 Seventy-one percent of Democratic women candidates won their primary bids for office and women are now set to be 33% of all major party nominees for the House from the four states. — Dan Merica And Annie Grayer, CNN, "Democratic women are winning primaries in large numbers, energizing other candidates," 14 May 2018 Something that often got left out of some of the national coverage: Either candidate would have made history, since Evans would have been the first women from a major party nominated for governor in state history. — Chris Cillizza, CNN, "What Stacey Abrams' massive primary win means for her chances to be the nation's first black woman governor," 23 May 2018 Stacey Abrams won the Democratic primary on Tuesday, making her the first woman gubernatorial nominee in Georgia from either major party. — Paulina Dedaj, Fox News, "Georgia governor's race: Cagle, Kemp headed to GOP runoff vote, Dems choose Abrams as nominee," 22 May 2018 With at least half a dozen candidates from each major party, the free-for-all to replace Royce (R-Fullerton) could yield a choice between two Republicans. — Christine Mai-duc, latimes.com, "Democrats are using a new strategy to prevent a primary shutout in California," 11 May 2018 So do so many cradle-to-grave politicos — in both major parties. — Ken Fisher, USA TODAY, "Why Senator Marco Rubio, other politicians need to study their economics," 13 May 2018 With every major party implicated in corruption, López Obrador’s supporters seem to care less about the practicality of his ideas than about his promises to fix a broken government. — Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, "A New Revolution in Mexico," 25 June 2012These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'major party.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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