The Pennsylvania Green Party, and the Pennsylvania Libertarian Party, both had legislative candidates in 2010 who set new records for each of those parties in legislative campaigns in that state.
The Green Party nominee for State House, 194th district, Hugh Giordano, received 18.50% of the vote in a race that also included a Democrat and a Republican. Giordano almost outpolled the Republican, Timothy Downey, who got 19.77%. The district is partly in Montgomery County and partly in Philadelphia County. Giordano is a 26-year-old organizer for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). He won the endorsement of one of the Democrats who had sought the Democratic nomination for this seat. Giordano’s share of the vote is the highest for any Green Party nominee (who was not simultaneously the nominee of the Democratic Party) for Pennsylvania legislative races. The previous Green Party best percentage for a Pennsylvania legislative race had been 17.43% in 2006, but that was a race with only one major party nominee.
The Libertarian Party nominee for State House, 120th district, Tim Mullen, received 14.91% of the vote in a race that also included a Democrat and a Republican. The district is in Luzerne County, which contains Wilkes-Barre. Mullen is a health care professional and a veteran of both Iraq wars. He knocked on the doors of a majority of the voters in the district. He was endorsed by the Luzerne County Controller, as well as the Republican nominee for the 120th district from the 2006 election. He is the only Libertarian for Pennsylvania legislature (running against opponents from both major parties) who has ever exceeded 8.81% of the vote.
Minor party candidates in Pennsylvania, especially for an office that is not close to the top of the ballot, suffer from that state’s straight-ticket device. The last time a minor party elected anyone to the Pennsylvania legislature was 1934, when the Socialist Party re-elected its two legislators from Reading.
Hugh also got 23% of the vote in the part of the district that’s actually in Philadelphia, beating the Republican there, and he won several precincts.
Also, Rex D’Agostino got 19.3% in the 183rd district this year, although he was running just against a Republican.
How soon before the Donkey/Elephant gerrymander forces *legally* wipe out all 3rd parties and independents in all States ???
P.R. and App.V.
I thought Hoopes was re-elected in ’36…
@2 That is the purpose of “top-two.” It will not only wipe out 3rd parties, it will eliminate independents and lead to a single, state-controlled party, an amalgamation of the powers that control the Democrats and Republicans joined together in a single entity.
@4 right again!
#3, Darlington Hoopes got 25.10% of the vote in 1936, not enough to win. Miles Williams, the other Socialist in that two-member district, got 22.41% in 1936. By contrast, the two Socialists who ran in that same district in 1934 were Darlington Hoopes who got 51.30% and Lilith Wilson who got 48.61%. Those were winning percentages.
In an interview 32 years later, Darlington Hoopes blamed his 1936 defeat on a split in the Reading Socialist Party.
Having successfully avoided the rift that nearly destroyed the national party in the early 1930’s, the Reading Socialists had just experienced one of the most remarkable third-party achievements in American history, a sweeping citywide victory in 1935 in which they elected a mayor, three city councilmen, a city controller, city treasurer and three school board members.
Reading voters also contributed heavily to Amos N. Lesher’s successful campaign for Berks County Commissioner that year. (Immensely popular among the county’s Amish voters, the 51-year-old Lesher, who had been elected to the Muhlenberg Township school board on the party’s ticket thirteen years earlier, was the only Socialist to ever hold that countywide office.)
Hoopes himself was nearly elected president judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Berks County that fall, losing narrowly to a Democratic-Republican fusion candidate whose campaign was largely funded by local bank directors, steel executives and utility magnates who couldn‘t stomach the idea of a Socialist like Hoopes presiding on the bench.
By the summer of 1936, Berks County Socialists numbered 2,350 dues-paying members, or roughly one-sixth of the party’s entire national membership. A majority of them resided in Reading.
Yet at the same time, the Reading party suddenly found itself badly divided.
Mirroring the bitter split that virtually tore the party apart nationally that year, a local left-wing faction created havoc that autumn by waging a mean-spirited “sticker” or write-in campaign against Reading’s Old Guard — a largely symbolic effort that netted few votes, but contributed immensely to the party’s stunning defeat at the ballot box.
Hoopes, who had once been named as the state’s most outstanding legislator by the Association of Pennsylvania Newspaper Reporters, was clearly the party’s greatest casualty.
The Reading attorney, who performed a yeoman’s effort in trying to keep the party together — both nationally and locally — during that period, was personally convinced that the split unnecessarily confused and demoralized the city’s longtime party activists while providing much-needed ammunition for the Democrats and Republicans.
The Socialist Party of Reading never recovered from the fratricidal split that year. Though J. Henry Stump was elected mayor again in 1943, largely as a result of his immense personal popularity, no other Socialist was ever elected to office in Reading after that unfortunate experience.
By the way, Johnstown newspaper publisher Hiram G. Andrews, who later served a couple terms as Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, also went down to defeat in 1936.
Running on an Independent Citizens ticket, Andrews was considered one of the state’s most independent-minded lawmakers at the time.
# 6-7-8 What is the fascination with historical TRIVIA ???
What regime had the first election ???
What regime has the oldest surviving election results ???
WHO CARES ????????
EVIL ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander regimes NOW in every State = EVIL party hack OLIGARCHIES in every State.
The 3 EVIL gerrymander systems in the EVIL U.S.A. gerrymander regime = EVIL monarchs/oligarchs in Deficit City.
Result — circa $$$ 17 TRILLION in U.S.A/S/L debt NOW — setting the stage for a possible Dollar collapse and TOTAL chaos.
P.R. and App.V.
#9- Why must you be so rude?
#10 Just in case nobody has noticed — the U.S.A. regime is collapsing due to deficits — accumulated since 1929 and especially since 1982 — the SENILE Reagan / Bush I voodoo economics compounded by the Bush II/Obama INSANE deficits.
If the U.S.A. collapses, then New Dark Age II on Mother Earth.
A lot more worse stuff WILL happen way beyond being allegedly rude.
P.R. and App.V — before it is too late.
Only brain dead folks can not detect how DANGEROUS things are NOW — makes 1773-1775 and 1859-1861 look like child’s play.
One quick point… Wilkes Barre, is actually in another district, the 121st. the 120th includes: Courtdale, Exeter, Exeter Twp, Forty Fort, Jackson Twp, Kingston, Kingston Twp, Luzerne, Pringle, Swoyersville, West Pittston, West Wyoming and Wyoming.
Congratulations to Tim Mullins and Pennsylvania Libertarians for waging a great campaign. Mullins was one of the Libertarian Donors Club supported candidates.