No Labels May Endorse and Support Two Independent Gubernatorial Candidates in 2026

The No Labels national leadership is considering whether to endorse and provide campaign support for Mike Duggan, an independent candidate for Michigan Governor who is also Mayor of Detroit.  It is also considering similar help to Jason Pizzo, an independent candidate for Governor of Florida.

There have been No Labels nominees for public office in a few states, but the national leadership of No Labels has never supported those candidates.

The Ninth Circuit still hasn’t issued its opinion in No Labels v Fontes, 24-563.  The issue in that case is whether No Labels, which is a qualified party in Arizona, has a constitutional right to block unwanted candidates in its primary.

Virginia Elections Office Files Brief in Republican Lawsuit Over Nomination Methods

On June 6, the Virginia Elections office filed this brief in Lynchburg v Republican City Committee v Virginia Department of Elections, w.d., 6:25cv-29.  The party claims that a new law in practice makes it impossible for it to nominate by convention.  The state’s brief says the party can use a convention but it must have procedures for various kinds of voters who can’t participate in person.

New York State Senate Passes Bill Giving Certain Parties More Power to Expel Members

New York is one of the few states that has a procedure for a party to expel members.  Current law lets a party do that if it has a county committee in the affected county.  On June 11, the State Senate passed S7111.  It says that if a party wants to expel a member, but doesn’t have a county committee in the relevant county, then the state committee can handle the expulsion.

The bill was introduced at the request of the Working Families Party, which is hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2024 in the 17th U.S. House district.  Individuals sympathetic to the Republican Party organized a group of similar-minded individuals to enroll in the Working Families Party, so that these newcomers outnumbered the ordinary enrolled members of the Working Families Party.  They then used their voting power in the WFP primary to nominate someone other than the Democratic nominee.  The leadership of the WFP couldn’t do anything about this, because the party doesn’t have county committees.  The WFP would have preferred to nominate the Democratic nominee in that district, as the party did in all the other US House districts in which it had a candidate.

The vote in the State Senate was 37-22.  Now the bill goes to the Assembly.