Three minor parties have nominees on the West Virginia ballot for state legislature this year. The Mountain Party (which is the Green Party affiliate in West Virginia) has four, the most it has had on the ballot for the legislature since 2002, when it had five.
The Constitution Party has three legislative nominees on the ballot. The Constitution Party did not get on the ballot for president, so it put its resources into petitioning for state legislature in three districts.
American Third Position also has a state legislative nominee on the ballot. American Third Position did not attempt to get on the ballot in West Virginia for president, and put its resources into petitioning for a legislative seat. As far as is known, its legislative nominee is the party’s only nominee for any partisan office anywhere in the United States this year, other than for President and Vice-President.
Dan Litten is running for State Senate versus Republican Craig Blair. There is NO DEMOCRAT in the race and it is an OPEN SEAT – newly drawn 15th district with no incumbent!
http://cpwv.org/elections/litten – check back later as more content is added.
8 of the 17 west virginia state senate seats up for election are running unopposed. I would think that third parties would want to jump on that opportunity. I find it amazing that third parties waste so much of their limited resources on presidential campaigns that are hopeless, when they could spend them on state legislature or even house seats that are unopposed and have a decent shot at winning and building their parties. For example the green party should focus on running against moderate democratic candidates, and the constitution party should focus on running against moderate republicans. The Libertarian party could have a decent shot against any unopposed candidate so long as they had enough funding.
West Virginia has a residency requirement for state senate whereby each of two senators must live in different counties. The Demmopublicans have conspired to gerrymander many of the senate districts so that only slivers of counties are in them which makes it difficult to find candidates unless the minor party candidate lives in the same neighborhood as an incumbent.
Glad to hear some good news for the CST in West Virginia. Yes, having that many unopposed seats is an opportunity to win and if nothing else, get free publicity as the news channels have to show the results on the scroller, causing people to look into which party was running so many candidates….
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