This article quotes Dr. Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, as saying that Tom Clements may outpoll Alvin Greene in this year’s U.S. Senate race in South Carolina. Clements is the Green Party nominee and Greene is the Democratic Party nominee.
The only Green Party nominee for U.S. Senate who ever outpolled either the Democratic or the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in any general election, so far, was Jed Whittaker in Alaska in 1996. He polled 29,037 votes, and his Democratic nominee polled 23,977.
No Libertarian has ever outpolled a major party opponent for U.S. Senate. The closest any Libertarian Party nominee came to doing that was Carla Howell in Massachusetts in 2000. She polled 308,860 votes and her Republican opponent polled 334,341 votes.
This is an exciting race indeed. Soon we expect to engage some of the sponsors of debates seeking inclusion in them, and to reach out to non-traditional sponsors hoping to get Tom into a debate with DeMint.
If the Chamber of Commerce, for example, were to sponsor a debate, it would be hard for DeMint to dis them by not showing up.
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South Carolina has straight ticket voting.
This is a campaign photo of the Alaska Democratic candidate for senator in 1996.
http://www.tobermeyer.info/images/fed.jpg
She was nominated in a blanket primary in which 87% of the voters voted for a Republican candidate, 10% a Democratic candidate, and 3% a Green candidate, and was nominated by winning the Democratic primary in an 8-candidate field, with 34% of the party vote and 3.6% of the overall vote. The 2nd place Republican candidate had 8 times as much of the vote.
In the general election, she received 10.3% of the total vote (compared to 36.4% for the Democratic candidate for the US House and 33.1% for Clinton/Gore.
The 1996 Alaska result and the 2008 South Carolina result are good illustrations of the Top 2 Open Primary.
Riley is semi-right. South Carolina does have straight ticket voting, however one can vote a straight ticket and still split their vote.
In South Carolina the straight ticket is more like a statement than a vote. One can vote for the Green Party and then not vote for any of our candidates.
But, if a voter only casts a straight ticket and doesn’t cast individual votes then the party candidates get all the votes.
As an interesting aside, while the Green Party did not come in first in any of the races in 2008, we did get more straight party votes than any of the other non-corporate parties.
So, Gregg, does South Carolina have a “three-way” system similar to Michigan’s?
From the LWVMI Website:
http://www.lwvmi.org/voterpower/faq.html#definestraigtparty
/=============================================
What is meant by a “straight party ticket”?
a “split ticket”? a “mixed ticket”?
———————————–
These terms apply only to the partisan part
of your ballot:
Voters may quickly vote a Straight Ticket
for all candidates of one political party.
Vote for all by marking your ballot for
one party.
OR a Split Ticket by overriding their
Straight Ticket choice for any office.
Each candidate under the party selected
will receive a vote except where
super[s]eded by a direct vote for a
candidate. NOTE: if you vote for
candidates of more than one political
party in a primary election, none of
your partisan selections will be counted.
OR a Mixed Ticket by selecting each
office individually and not selecting
a party.
If you vote a “straight ticket,” only
the partisan offices are included. The
following offices (at the state level)
are not included: Supreme Court and
Court of Appeals. Although Supreme
Court candidates are usually nominated by
political parties, their names appear on
the “nonpartisan” portion of the ballot.
=============================================/
John…exactly. You hit the nail right on the head.