This is old news, but better late than never. At the November 4, 2014 election, an independent candidate was almost elected to the Montana House of Representatives. The vote in the 94th district in Missoula County was: Democratic incumbent Kimberly Dudik 1,748 votes; independent Gary Marbut 1,700 votes.
Montana hasn’t elected an independent candidate to the state legislature since 1958. Here is an old news story that describes the 2014 campaign. Marbut’s candidacy would not have been possible if a U.S. District Court hadn’t struck down the March petition deadline for non-presidential independent candidates in 2012, in Kelly v McCulloch. Marbut did not enter the race until after primary filing had closed.
This candidate had run several times as a Republican including, 2012, against the same Democratic candidate.
FYI, Montana has somewhat of a history with this. Though never elected as a non-establishment candidate, about fifteen years ago, Republican legislator Rick Jore switched his party affiliation from GOP to the Constitution Party prior to the 2000 election. He then ran and was narrowly defeated as a CP candidate three times before switching back to the GOP and being re-elected to the Montana legislature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Jore
Montana has a quite large House, and a small population so that House districts only have about 10,000 persons.
It is quite plausible that most voters would know candidates personally. Under Top 2, it is quite possible that someone could be elected as an independent. This might be particularly true if someone had served on the school board or some other non-partisan local office, and didn’t fully associate with the dominate party. In a Republican area, a “Democrat” might not be electable, but an Independent who was known to the community might well be electable, and the same may be true in Democratic areas.
Top two is just a bad system and I doubt, in a 3 way race that the Independent would emerge to travel into the general election. Under the current system, Independents will be on the general ballot. The top two is all about control and power. The losers in a top two primary will be us the voters, who won’t be able to vote for the candidate of our choice. Turnout was pretty low in Montana, but issues and candidates don’t matter until the general election when people start to become more involved.
Rick Jore was elected as a Constitution Party nominee in Montana, in 2006. He won with 55.45%. He couldn’t run for re-election in 2008 because of term limits.
Rick Jore, not Gore – no relation to Albert. Thanks for the correction, Richard. I should have known that he WAS elected as a CP candidate. It was the Montana CP’s disaffiliation that cost him the recognition.
In most of Montana, they have a hard time coming up with two candidates let alone three.
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