The Better Party, founded by U.S. Senate candidate Jared Young, submitted more than 25,000 signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office on Friday.

“The biggest barrier for an independent candidate is getting on the ballot, and so we've accomplished that today,” Young said. “It took a lot of resources and a lot of time, but we're here and from now on, we know, this box is checked, and we can just focus on getting our message out.

”The party needed at least 10,000 verified signatures to gain ballot access for its candidates this year. Along with Young as the party’s candidate for U.S. Senate, Blake Ashby, a former city councilman in the city of Ferguson, is running under the party’s label for the state’s U.S. House seat in the 1st Congressional District.Forty-three percent of Missouri voters do not claim affiliation with either the Republican or Democratic parties, while 33% identify as Republican and 27% identify as Democrat, according to a survey of 524 likely general election voters in Missouri conducted by Y2 Analytics from May 24-30, 2023.This same poll found that 70% of all voters in the state would consider supporting an independent or third-party candidate in the 2024 U.S. Senate race, while 64% of Missouri voters think that the two major parties do such a dismal job representing Americans that a third option is necessary.