The New York State Board of Elections has released the list of candidates who will be on the ballot for U.S. Senate and U.S. House in November. In the U.S. Senate race, the only names are the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian nominees.
For U.S. House, the following parties have nominees who are not the nominees of either major party:
Green Party in four districts: 5, 11, 13, 21
Working Families Party in two districts: 1, 24
Independence Party in one district: 1
Conservative Party in one district: 15
Reform Party in one district: 22
The only ballot-qualified party that did not have any nominees other than the nominees of one of the major parties is the Women’s Equality Party, which only nominated individuals who are also Democratic Party nominees.
Only two candidates got on the ballot who are not nominees of any qualified party. They are two independents, one in the 13th district and one in the 16th.
For some reason the Green Party in New York State doesn’t like to field candidates where they have high enrollment. I don’t understand this.
What is the current status of the NYS Right To Life Party, and the NYS Liberal Party? Are they running candidates, or existing in name only, or out of business?
I’d guess that the WFP candidates in CD-1 and CD-24 are being nominated to the Chiltern Hundreds (the NYS Supreme Court) to open their spots up to Dem candidates. Maybe Calone in CD-1 is nominated to give the Dems another spot and to avoid splitting votes vs the Rep.
The Women’s Equality Party might have a stand-alone nominee this year for an Assembly seat. One of the incumbents they endorsed lost her primary in the former Sheldon Silver seat
Low enrollment in NY 21, Clay? If that’s the case, then that makes Matt Funiciello’s campaign in 2014 and this year all the more impressive than it already is.
Joshua H, districts 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27 each have more Greens than 21. It’s great that Funiciello is working so hard to build the party. But why not recruit candidates in all of these districts? Who cares if we can’t find great candidates. These are all upstate districts, and that’s where Greens have the most support in New York. This is also the part of the state that loses districts after each census. Why not run candidates while we can?
It is likely that the Greens are strategizing to avoid running against a candidate who identifies as “progressive” Democrat. They are more likely to run candidates in districts against an opponent who is more “conservative” Democrat, or against a Republican. It is easier for a Green to win against a conservative than a fellow progressive.
Lee, Greens NEVER win elections against candidates from the traditional parties. They only win elections when either they’re the only candidate on the ballot, or where voters have to choose multiple candidates and the major parties have failed to field a complete slate, or where the ballot labels used in the election are not true party labels like Democrat, Republican, Green, etc…but unique party labels created locally for the specific race, or, they win “nonpartisan” elections where there are no party labels at all. I think the whole point of having a political party is to win elections. If I controlled the Green Party I would have us field candidates in as many races as possible. Picking and choosing races based on the other participants in totally the wrong way to go about it. We should be running candidates in every congressional district. Let the other parties worry about dealing with us rather than us changing what we do based on who they’re running.
Greens twice elected a state legislator in Maine, 2002 and 2004, against major party nominees. California Greens elected a state legislator in a special election 1999. The Green nominee beat the Democratic nominee.
Thanks for the info, Richard. That’s why I love coming here. The Greens have a total of 261 candidates on the ballot this November. With the record-setting ballot access and fundraising for 2016, its likely that even more Green candidates will run for the mid-term elections.