The Democratic, Republican, Green, Reform, and Socialist Parties have fewer state legislative nominees on the ballot this year than they did in 2006. However, the Libertarian and Constitution Parties have more legislative nominees on the ballot this year, compared to 2006. Also, the Socialist Workers Party has the same number (one) on the ballot for state legislature this year as in 2006.
If the Working Families Party is considered to be a nationally-organized party, then it also has more legislative nominees this year than it did in 2006. However, there really is no national structure for the Working Families Party; instead there are separate state WFP’s.
For purposes of this comparison, in fusion states, if a candidate has the nomination of more than one qualified party, that candidate is only credited to the party that the candidate belongs to. In the case of the Socialist Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, when that party is not on the ballot in a particular state, but that party’s candidate wins the nomination of a party that is ballot-qualified, then the candidate is grouped with the party which actually put him on the ballot. For example, Matt Erard is a Green Party nominee on the Michigan ballot, so he is classed as a Green, even though he is also a member of the Socialist Party, which is not on the Michigan ballot. However, if he had qualified as an independent, he would have been classed as a Socialist Party nominee.
Some little-known parties that are only organized in a single state have legislative nominees. One is the Blue Enigma Party of Delaware, which has 3 legislative nominees. See this interesting article about that party. Another is the British Reformed Sectarian Party of Florida; see this article. Still another is the Connecticut for Lieberman Party, in Connecticut. The party has 5 legislative candidates. All of them consider themselves political opponents of U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. They took over the “party” that Lieberman created when he ran for U.S. Senate in 2006.
A state-by-state breakdown for legislative candidates, and also U.S. House candidates, for each political party, will be in the November 1 paper edition of Ballot Access News. For a free sample of that issue, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to BAN, PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147.
On the gp.org elections menu, there are 3 groups
of “equivalent” state legislature offices:
State Representative
State House of Representative
General Assembly
Using these 3 groups of candidates, there are
approximately 57 Green Party candidates for these
offices from what I can tell. That seems to surpass the number the Green Party had for these
offices in 2006.
That Green Party webpage is very good and very useful, but it lists some Greens who wanted to run this year, but didn’t get on the November ballot for a variety of reasons. One Arizona Green didn’t get enough write-in votes in the Green Party primary. 5 Illinois Greens apparently didn’t get nominated properly by party meeting after the primary, or else they didn’t get on the Green Party primary ballot. One Connecticut candidate’s general election petition failed. Some Maine Greens apparently didn’t get themselves on the Green Party primary ballot. One Ohio candidate didn’t get on for some reason. One South Carolina Green was kept off by a Democratic Party challenge. One Washington state Green was wiped out by “top-two”. One West Virginia Mountain Party candidate didn’t end up on the ballot for some reason.
So the Connecticut for Lieberman party candidates are all opponents of Joe Lieberman? That must be confusing. One would think that voters who dislike Lieberman would reject any candidates with the “Connecticut for Lieberman” label.