This news story says Drew Curtis, an independent running for Governor of Kentucky in the November 3, 2015 election, already has 6,000 signatures. The deadline is August 11. He needs 5,000 and says he expects to have at least 8,500 by the deadline.
Another independent candidate, who changed his name to Gatewood Galbraith, only as 2,000 signatures so far.
The only ballot-qualified parties in Kentucky are the Democratic and Republican Parties. The only other ballot-qualified parties Kentucky has had in the last 90 years have been the American Party 1968-1972, the Anderson Coalition Party 1980-1984, and the Reform Party 1996-2000. Kentucky is the only state in which the only office that counts toward party status is President. The law requires 2%, which sounds easy but is not, because it is so rare for any party other than the Democratic and Republican Parties to poll 2% for President.
It’s really a shame to have someone change their name to that of a well-known political figure in hopes of getting votes. The original Gatewood Galbraith was a frequent candidate for governor and other offices in Kentucky, as a Democrat, Reform Party candidate, and independent. I suspect that the new Gatewood Galbraith (formerly Terrill Newman) is hoping that some of the original Galbraith’s supporters didn’t realize that he died in 2012.
We had a similar situation a few years ago in Chicago, when a woman named Lauryn Valentine changed her name to “Carol Moseley-Braun” (same as the then-U.S. Senator from Illinois) and attempted to run for alderman under that name. (Valentine wound up being disqualified from the ballot and her name change was also revoked.)
There was also a man named John Francis Kennedy who won three terms as Massachusetts state treasurer from 1955 to 1961 thanks to the fact that he was listed on the ballot as John F. Kennedy. At least he was using his real name, though.