Cathy Stewart is a founder and architect of the independent and political reform movements. For 35 years she has conceived and executed the most successful targeted base-building projects among independent and independent-aligned voters. As Vice President for National Development at Independent Voting for over 15 years, Stewart designed and implemented strategic bottom-up organizing thrusts, with the goal of making independent voters visible and included in America’s political process.
Stewart’s work has spanned the timeframe during which independent political power has emerged as a decisive if unpredictable force. Unlike many individuals active in reform politics, she created and sustained partnerships with Republicans, Democrats and Independents, in and out of government.Â
In 1988 and 1992, Stewart played a key role in Dr. Lenora Fulani’s landmark independent presidential campaigns, driving the historic achievement in which Fulani became the first woman and first African-American in US history to access the presidential ballot. In 1994 she was a founder of the Independence Party of New York, served on the State Executive Committee and was the NYC coordinator. Stewart ran the ballot access campaign and the mobilization of independent voters for Michael Bloomberg’s three successful campaigns for NYC mayor (2001, 2005, 2009). Stewart was a founding delegate of the National Reform Party and was appointed as its National Party Building Chair in 2000. In 2019 and 2020, she led Independent Voting’s Eyes on 2020 campaign, in which she mobilized at the grassroots and the grasstops, and among statewide elections officials to open the presidential primaries to independent voters.
Stewart’s wide-ranging experience includes expertise in ballot access laws and regulations; building politically and socially diverse coalitions; devising tactics for grassroots campaigns and initiative drives, and training and developing independent activists and leaders. She combines a unique mix of old-school person-to-person organizing with digital and other forms of mass contact to build infrastructure and campaigns.
She is the co-author of numerous political research publications, including most recently The independent vote in 2024: An analysis of swing-state vs US, published by Arizona State University’s Center for An Independent and Sustainable Democracy.
In 2003, she founded Politics for the People (P4P), an online book club and blog for independent activists, featuring an interactive conference call with Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling authors of US history, political science, and literary fiction. In 2002 she won a Women of Distinction Award given by the New York State Senate.Â
Stewart earned her MSN from Simmons College and a BA from Wheaton College. After living in NYC for 33 years, she now lives in rural upstate NY. She is a prize-winning photographer, avid snail-mail enthusiast and Vice Chair of the Battenkill Chorale.Â