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Definition 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
Recent Examples on the Web Biden is currently leading among those who dislike both major party candidates, a group Trump won in 2016.
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W. James Antle Iii, Washington Examiner, "Trump's Biden problem: People don’t hate him like they did Hillary Clinton," 24 June 2020 The former New York mayor-turned-presidential fixer has been nominated by Trump to push for more than the three traditional debates between the two major party candidates ahead of the election.
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Stephen Collinson With Caitlin Hu And Vedika Sud, CNN, "Presidential debates and Modi's China challenge," 23 June 2020 During the 1960s, all the country’s major parties maintained a commitment to reclaiming territories lost under the Potsdam Agreement.
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Anil Menon, The Conversation, "Postwar forced resettlement of Germans echoes through the decades," 7 May 2020 Abrams is the first black woman in U.S. history to have won the gubernatorial nomination of either major party.
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Kevin Powell, Washington Post, "The Power of Stacey Abrams," 14 May 2020 Lawyers involved in the negations told the NYT that the settlement has gotten approval from the major parties involved.
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Eric Todisco, PEOPLE.com, "Emily Ratajkowski Writes 'F--- Harvey' Weinstein on Her Arm After His Reported $25M Settlement," 12 Dec. 2019 Most Americans are not rigidly partisan and do not feel well represented by either of the two major parties.
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Justin Amash, Twin Cities, "Justin Amash: Our politics is in a partisan death spiral. That’s why I’m leaving my party," 10 July 2019 At 77, Biden becomes the oldest major party presidential nominee in modern history.
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Tim Darnell, ajc, "New Reuters poll shows Joe Biden leading President Trump in presidential race," 23 Apr. 2020 Since the Anti-Masonic Party held the first one in 1831—leading the major parties to stop selecting presidential candidates by congressional caucuses—conventions have taken center stage in U.S. politics every four years.
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Karl Rove, WSJ, "2016 Conventions Might Have Been the Last," 22 Apr. 2020
See MoreThese 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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Time Traveler for major party
The first known use of major party was in 1950
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