Minnesota will hold presidential primaries in 2020, and all four of the qualified parties are eligible to have one. The four parties are Republican, Democratic-Farmer-Labor, Legal Marijuana Now, and Grassroots-Legalize Marijuana.
This is the second time that any Minnesota party, other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, has been eligible for its own presidential primary. Minnesota also had presidential primaries in 1916, 1952, 1956, and 1992, but in those years, only the two major parties were ballot-qualified, except that in 1916, the Progressive Party and the Prohibition Party were eligible, and the Prohibition Party used its primary.
The Minnesota presidential primary law in effect for 2020 says that candidates get on a presidential primary ballot by being chosen by their own parties. Minnesota, Georgia, and Florida are the only states like that. If a party doesn’t want a presidential candidate on its primary ballot, there is nothing the candidate can do to get on that presidential primary ballot. This type of law was upheld in federal court in 1992, when David Duke tried to get on the Florida and Georgia Republican presidential primary ballots, but the Republican Party wouldn’t allow it.
It is not known if either the Legal Marijuana Now Party, or the Grassroots-Legalize Marijuana Parties, will even want a presidential primary in 2020.
How did those tiny parties qualify for primaries but the Greens and Libertarians do not?
In 1916, the Democratic, Republican, Progressive and Prohibition parties each had a presidential primary in Minnesota. It was held on March 14th of that year.
Former President Teddy Roosevelt refused to allow his name to be placed on the Progressive Party’s primary ballot and qualifying paperwork for California’s Hiram W. Johnson was received too late, so no presidential or vice-presidential candidates were listed in the Progressive primary, but the Prohibitionists placed two active presidential candidates on the state’s primary ballot — Eugene N. Foss, the former governor of Massachusetts, and William Sulzer, the ex-governor of New York. Three vice-presidential candidates also qualified for Prohibition primary.
The two presidential candidates were former Democrats. Interestingly, both men had also received a scattering of votes at the Democratic national convention four years earlier, a drawn-out affair which nominated Woodrow Wilson.
In any case, both candidates fielded complete slates of candidates for Minnesota’s eleven at-large delegates to the Prohibition Party’s national convention — the March primary was considered an early test of their respective candidacies — while the politically-shrewd Sulzer, who had been impeached by the Tammany-controlled New York legislature in 1913 and elected to the New York legislature as a Progressive a year later, also fielded a surprising number of candidates for the state’s district delegate seats.
While neither candidate personally campaigned in the state — that wasn’t something presidential candidates usually did in those days — both candidates put quite a bit of thought and resources into the Minnesota primary.
Sulzer won the Minnesota preferential primary, garnering 3,334 votes to 2,465 for Foss.
Interestingly, one of Sulzer’s leading at-large delegates was a fellow by the name of William J. Bryan, which was something of a curiosity that year since national Prohibition Party leaders later tried to draft former Secretary of State and three-time Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan to head the party’s ticket in the days leading up to the party’s national convention that summer in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Incidentally, the leading Foss supporter in the state was longtime Prohibitionist Willis Greenleaf Calderwood, one of the party’s all-time leading vote-getters in Minnesota. Calderwood, who received a staggering 78,425 votes, or 20.6 percent, in a bid for the U.S. Senate on the party’s ticket in 1916 and nearly 40 percent against powerful Republican Sen. Knute Nelson on the newly-formed National Party ticket two years later, was easily elected in the primary as an at-large delegate pledged to the former Massachusetts governor.
Ironically, when Foss later abandoned his candidacy Calderwood quickly met with automaker Henry Ford about seeking the party’s presidential nomination — a meeting it turns out that was initiated by the automaker-turned peace advocate on the eve of the party’s national convention. Ford’s prospective candidacy, however, fizzled out just prior to the St. Paul convention and Calderwood himself ended up running as a favorite-son candidate. He garnered 22 votes on the convention’s first and only ballot.
J. Frank Hanley, the former governor of Indiana, won the party’s nomination, defeating Sulzer by a margin of 440 votes to 188 while one hundred and seven delegates voted for a handful of other candidates.
Hanly. Sorry about the typo.
The easiest way for a party in Minnesota to become a major party (automatic ballot access) is to have a statewide candidate get 5% or more of the vote. Statewide, the Greens struggle to break 1.5% and the Libertarians 2.5%. The Independence Party had major party status for 20 years (1995-2014), however, in 2014 and 2018 they fell short with 4.9% and 4.1% respectively. The two marijuana parties routinely bring in 2.5-3.5%. In 2018, they were able to pull down 5.9% in a 3-way race for AG and broke 5% in a four-way State Auditor race to gain major party status.
Thank you for the information about 1916, Darcy. I have corrected the post.
1916 – Max war in Europe – Verdun in West.
Set up for infamous Germany Zimmermann Telegram >>> USA — into WW I Apr 1917 [and LOTS of later UN-declared Wars by KILLER USA Prezs)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
anyone know who won 1916 Prohibition Party Vice President primary?
1916 is the only time Minnesota had a Vice Presidential primary and only candidates from the Prohibition party ran