Third Party Watch

Ballot Access News reports that Kentucky elected an independent candidate to the State Senate in last November’s election.

On November 7, 2006, voters in Kentucky’s 2nd State Senate district elected an independent candidate to represent them in the State Senate. Kentucky almost never elects independent candidates to state or federal office. Independent candidates must contend against [...]

And I thought I didn’t mince words…

Looks to be that there’s a backlash against the recent electoral successes of the Greens in Massachusetts, with an op/ed in FrontPageMagazine.com attacking them.

The Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts didn’t do badly in the state’s November elections. Although its candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, Grace Ross and Wendy Van [...]

Looks like a good year for third parties.

While the Greens managed to beat back duopoly power in Illinois and the Libertarians set records in Texas and Georgia, the Constitution Party is cementing its base in the intermontane West.

Of course, there’s Jore. But just as worthwhile are the close finishes, the double-digit races, the serious [...]

Looks like an impressive and record-setting write-in vote total for Illinois Constitution Party gubernatorial candidate Randy Stufflebeam. This is real, reported votes rather than the undervotes that were being tabulated earlier.

Had he been on the ballot, it seems like Stufflebeam might have made as big of a splash as Green candidate Rich Whitney. [...]

In a recent special election held to replace a Canadian MP who resigned to seek another office, the Green Party scored a strong second place showing. Green Leader Elizabeth May captured 26%, behind the Liberals’ 35% but ahead of the 24% for the Conservative candidate and 14% for the NDP candidate.

From the CBC…

Green [...]

This is a piece from the Berkeley Daily Planet that highlights all of the various success stories that the Green Party has to show for the 2006 election.

I think the author goes a bit overboard in calling this year an “unqualified success” considering the Greens lost their only state legislator and lost several winnable state [...]

Libertarian Senatorial candidate Steve Osborn received just under 13% of the vote statewide in a one-on-one contest against Senator Dick Lugar. However, results on the CNN website and on Dave Leip’s site both point to a 60-40% win for Osborn in Warren county. This is not Osborn’s home county and it’s not [...]

First off I want to apologize about the update I posted earlier on Randy Stufflebeam’s write-in totals. The original post missed the fact that the Stufflebeam campaign was including “undervotes” in the totals until such time as hard numbers became available. This probably created an extreme over-estimation of the

In my correction to [...]

The Constitution Party’s candidate for governor of Illinois posted an impressively strong showing last week… as a write-in candidate.

While the numbers are still pretty sketchy, Randy Stufflebeam appears to have captured at least 1% of the vote statewide… and potentially more than that.

See here for the campaign’s latest and best attempts at pulling together a [...]

More bad news for third party candidates. It looks like Libertarian County Commissioner Paul Trujillo was defeated in his New Mexico re-election bid last night…

DAVID R. MEDINA (DEM) . . . . . 1,781 (47.10%)
PAUL E. TRUJILLO (LIB) . . . [...]

Libertarian state house candidate Hardy Machia is in a respectable fourth place with 18% of the vote in his race, with at least one precinct left to report in.

The LP’s website reports a few local wins including a seat on the Hardeeville City Council in South Carolina and a few Soil and Water Supervisors.

Oh yeah, [...]

Some last minute gubernatorial numbers and then I’m off to sleep.

In Texas, Strayhorn took 18% for third place and Friedman was back in fourth at 12%.

In Alaska, Andrew Halcro is picking up 10%.

In Minnesota, Peter Hutchinson has 6% of the vote.

In Illinois, Green candidate Rich Whitney has pulled in an impressive 11% of the vote.

In [...]

John Eder appears to have been narrowly defeated for re-election in Maine. As the party’s only state representative nationally, this is a huge blow.

Matthew Reading, another Green seeking a Maine state house seat has fallen short by 4 votes and this race will probably be heading to a recount.

Benjamin Meiklejohn, another promising state house [...]

Libertarian state house candidate Rex Bell is running a distant third in his Indiana race.

No word yet on the potentially viable candidates for state house in New Hampshire and Vermont.

Looks like Rick Jore is solidly in the lead to capture a state house seat up in Montana… a bright spot in this otherwise not-so-great night for minor parties.

The CP’s other hope for a state house pick-up, Ed McGarr in Utah, appears to be trailing very badly at this moment.

I’ve been sweating out a really tough race of my own tonight, but as it stands now things are looking pretty good. I’m leading my opponent by about 6% or 11,000 votes. He’s got a strong base and a lot of institutional support, but with more than 90% of the votes counted… I’m [...]

Bob Smither and Michael Badnarik have both failed to top 10% in their respective races.

In Maine, Merrill hits 20% and LaMarche is topping 10%. Whitney holding a solid 10% in Illinois.

No solid word yet on state house races…

Turns out there was a little bit of an election this weekend. Ballot Access News has all the details, including a better than 10% showing for a Libertarian in a statewide race…

Louisiana held special elections on September 30 for Insurance Commissioner and Secretary of State. This was the first time the Libertarian Party had [...]

With about 90% reporting in Minnesota, everything went about as expected.

Peter Hutchinson defeated Pam Ellison in the Independence Party primary for governor by a margin of 66-34%.

In the GOP primary, Governor Tim Pawlenty has 89% of the vote to Libertarian-turned-Republican Sue Jeffers’ 11%.

The Independence Party also saw contested primaries for Attorney General and U.S. Senate. [...]

Excellent news for the Oakland Greens as city council candidate Aimee Allison scored a 37% showing in Wednesday’s election and has now forced a run-off with incumbent Pat Kernighan. We profiled Ms. Allison back on April 5th and noted that her previous showing in an Oakland City Council race was 14% in an 8-way [...]

Republicans scored a key hold in California’s 50th Congressional District yesterday as former Congressman Brian Bilbray defeated Democratic challenger Francine Busby. An independent and a Libertarian were also on the ballot.

The results…

Brian P. Bilbray (Rep) – 60,319 votes – 49.33%
Francine Busby (Dem) – [...]

This news is about a week old, but still pretty interesting. As we’d reported, former Libertarian candidate Scott Bludorn was running for State House again, but this time as a Republican.

In 2004 he received slightly more than 8% of the vote in the general election. This year, he polled 46% in the [...]

Great news for the Green Party as they win their first election of 2006, a seat on the Lake Worth City Commission in Florida…

A 29-year-old mentor of high school students who believes decision-making should come from a community of equals, not from “top-down authoritative government,” beat out a 50-year-old backed by big business Tuesday night.

First-time [...]

Big news tonight as Vermont Progressive Party state representative Bob Kiss was elected mayor of Burlington.

From WRGB-TV:

Progressive Bob Kiss was elected mayor of Burlington today, winning on the second ballot of the instant runoff under the city’s new election system.

Kiss, a state representative, won 39 percent of the vote on the first ballot, while Democrat [...]

Texas held a primary election on Tuesday… not that many people actually voted or anything.

A few small points of interest:

1.) Republican Congressman and former LP Presidential candidate Ron Paul wiped this floor with token opposition and won his party’s re-nomination.

2.) The Democratic field has shrunken to two candidates in the District 10 Congressional race. [...]