The Constitution Party is now on the ballot in twelve states: Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. However the Oregon Constitution Party does not consider itself affiliated with the national party. Oregon permits qualified parties to change their names, but the Oregon Constitution Party is content with its current name. The Idaho Constitution Party also doesn’t consider itself affiliated with the national party, but it did put the Constitution Party’s presidential nominee on the ballot in 2020. Idaho is another state that lets qualified parties change their names, but the Idaho Constitution Party seems content with its name.
At the end of 2016, the Constitution Party was on the ballot in thirteen states, counting Idaho and Oregon.
Hard to imagine that they were this successful. Don Blankenship had the second lowest total number of votes in the party’s history.
“Oregon Constitution Party does not consider itself affiliated with the national party”…and neither does Idaho. This article should be corrected to reflect that.
By vote of the state convention in 2018 at Mountain Home, CP-Idaho formally disaffiliated. State convention is the ultimate authority. CP-Idaho remains a separate unaffiliated and independent state party.
@ Longtime–“Don Blankenship had the second lowest total number of votes in the party’s history.”
Our unpublished vote expectation for the 2020 Blankenship campaign removed the initial 1992 result (43,368) as a low outlier, since 1992 was the very first election for the new party. Truncating the 1992 returns produced a 2020 estimate range of 170 to 181 thousand votes, on a flatter forecast line than one gotten using all the previous returns.
Even at that, it was not nearly flat enough. 2020 has resulted in a tipping point in terms of the percent of the total general ballot nationwide gotten by the national CP. Blankenship would have to have doubled his 2020 return for the national CP to have retained a positive % of the total presidential ballot. So, the 2020 returns were absolutely abysmal. No other way to put it.
I mention truncating the 1992 returns because a case could be made that Blankenship actually returned the WORST results in the party’s history, given the national CP’s lowest % of the national total ballot ever.
@ Winger–“but it did put the Constitution Party’s presidential nominee on the ballot in 2020”. This is not exactly correct either.
Actually, it’s the other way ’round. Some three months after our Idaho primary selected Blankenship, national CP put candidate Blankenship on its national ticket. It required an historic second round of national convention balloting to do so. CP-Idaho was not a participant in any procedural decision made by balloting done by the national CP.
The only question for our 2020 state convention (with whom rests the naming of our candidates) was who would be the VP. At convention, certain unauthorized persons sought to expel Blankenship from the Idaho ballot via extremely hostile dilatory attempts to seize the podium.
In light of that, ultimately Mohr was motioned and elected given no other qualified willing candidate sought CP-Idaho’s VP nomination.
So technically the national CP is only ballot qualified in just 10 states.
The concept of the number of states a “national” party is on the ballot does not make analytical sense. National parties do not have ballot access. In this country, only state parties have ballot access.
In 1964 and 1968 the Democratic Party of Alabama did not nominate the choice of the national convention, but no one would say that the Democratic Party wasn’t on the ballot in Alabama in 1964 or 1968. In 2000 the Arizona Libertarian Party didn’t nominate the national presidential nominee, but no one would say the Arizona Libertarian Party wasn’t on the ballot in 2000. Ditto the Socialist Connecticut Party in 1940, the Republican Party of California and South Dakota in 1912, and the Prohibition Party of South Dakota in 1892.
@ Winger–“did not nominate the choice of the national convention”
Your reasoning is questionable. It might apply to the 2016 CP-Idaho situation when we remained affiliated but refused to nominate the national CP candidate by printing Copeland/Myers on our ballot line. This is equivalent to your examples.
However, as of July 28, 2018, CP-Idaho is a state or regional party. Our state convention voted to disaffiliate–in the presence of an Associated Press reporter (Ms. Kaufmann) and Mr. J.R. Myers, representing the national CP as Western States Area Chair and who had the national CP chairman on the phone through the disaffiliation.) Our disaffiliation was accepted.
So in 2020, “refusing to nominate the choice of the national convention” did not apply. CP-Idaho chose our nominee by state primary in early March, months before the national CP. Only the question of Mohr as VP remained. He was passed through as a matter of convenience to rid state convention of a coup attempt by New Mexico candidate Tittle.
Dear Floyd Whitley, Idaho lets qualified parties change their name. The most recent example was when Idaho let the Natural Law Party change its name to the United Party, which went off the ballot after just one election (2006) because it only had 2 candidates, instead of the required 3, due to one of their three withdrawing.
@ Winger–“Idaho lets qualified parties change their name”.
I am uncertain as to the relevance of this statement. By similar measure, the national CP can change ITS name, can it not?
At what point in its decline does it stop making sense to refer to it as a national party?
Richard, as always, you lump INDEPENDENT state parties with a separate political party that’s organized nationally, and is also opposed by these two independent state political parties in question. The Idaho CP only had Blankenship on their ballot because he won their state primary and their state party believes in following state election law to the ‘T’.
But if we also use the same logic- then the Nevada IAP should be lumped in with the National IAP, all because they share the same name ‘Independent American Party’.
Still, American Third Party Report will ACCURATELY report that the CP is ballot qualified in ten states.
“Dear Floyd Whitley, Idaho lets qualified parties change their name. The most recent example was when Idaho let the Natural Law Party change its name to the United Party, which went off the ballot after just one election (2006) because it only had 2 candidates, instead of the required 3, due to one of their three withdrawing.”
Why not demand the same thing of the Nevada IAP? Yet you gladly include the Nevada IAP with the national CP -even though they don’t share the same name at all.
So if you’re going to apply your logic in that manner, then you need to include the Nevada IAP with the number of states that the National IAP is qualified in; since they do share the same IAP name, after all. :3
“American Third Party Report” lol! That’s basically a mirror of this site.
@ Longtime re: “Hard to imagine that they were this successful.
Quite a few of the 12 states where the CP still has ballot access do not use the presidential vote to keep ballot access. So no matter how abysmal Blankenship’s vote totals were the party would still be on most of those 12 states. Consider those states the low hanging fruit in terms of ballot access.
@ Quirk–“Why not demand the same thing of the Nevada IAP?” True. Also include American Constitution Party and US Taxpayers Party, if symmetric logic is the object.
Also @ Eric–CP-Idaho does not use the presidential vote to remain ballot qualified. We are a functional state party…maybe operated by hicks and hoedads, but operational nonetheless.
We have looked at the aggregate vote statewide which include down ballot races. A slight negative correlation (admittedly counter intuitive) exists between presidential election and midterm aggregate totals.
As odd as that might seem, we often have more aggregate votes in midterms than in the general.
If your daughters became hoes it probably has a lot to do with your failure as fathers.
The Constitution Party candidate for US House in Wyoming, Jeff Haggit, received 2.9% of the vote so I assume they will continue to be on the ballot there unless failure to have a presidential candidate on the ballot overrides that.
@ Floyd – Hey, I think I owe you a sandwich. In a previous post, I bet you that Blankenbooney wouldn’t crack 50k. Apparently he did. Just barely.
@ Becker: yeah. I didn’t comment on your previous post…not wanting to boast. Blankenship’s got just over 60K now. And no doubt, the Fluckiger Follies (there’s other words for ’em) will now spin that paltry vote as a wonderment. I leave the boasting to them. They own it.
National CP now has a negative linear trend in their percent of the national ballot. Blankenship needed to best 115-120 thousand votes to avoid their declining share; but did not. Mathematically, their 2020 run was literally a literal tipping point. The national CP’s decline in prospects cannot be reversed by the same elite aristocratic theocrats who drove their bandwagon into the ditch in the first place.
Their “solution” seems to be to lay the lash ever more forcefully upon the hide of the poor draft beast that died in the traces under their “care”. Their “methods” will never resurrect it. The aroma alone should be clue enough of their futility. But, beat it they nevertheless do, on the off chance it will rise under more abuse.
Don Blankenship was a very controversial, uninspiring candidate given his history of mining problems resulting in a year long prison visit. I had to force myself to vote for him but then again there was no other anti-Roe vs Wade candidate to vote for except the person I despise, Trump who suspiciously has come very late to Pro-Life, 2014, which is unacceptable to me.
I am now more of a moderate Republican (Jon Huntsman with Ron Paul leanings on foreign policy and the war on drugs as well as liberal views on healthcare), however my first presidential ballot I cast was for Chuck Baldwin in 2008. I was 20 years so that was my first presidential election I was eligible for. If the CP ever regains ballot access in my state I might consider voting for the nominee in 2024 if they choose someone like Darrell Castle and if the Republicans choose an unrestrained man like Trump or a neo-con like Jeb Bush. I don’t like to see the CP go down the tubes like they did in this election. This was the 2nd worse performance for the presidency in terms of number of votes and is the worse when talking about percentage of votes (especially when adjusting for population growth and the subsequent increase in voting population). When warned about the number of disgruntled state affiliates, a certain CP Missouri member (who regularly comments here) dismissed those affiliates as either lacking ballot access or only having a few members. This ignored the fact that some of these affiliates had ballot access in the past and could have worked towards gaining it this election in addition to getting write-in access. In Texas and California, the campaign could have gained write-in access if they had a slate for the electoral college (that means they couldn’t find 38 people in Texas or 55 people in California to support them). Now here is some silver lining: I want to give hope that the CP leadership learns from this election. First, Jim Clymer will again be chairman. I haven’t met him personally ,but from what I heard he has the ability to rebuild the party and bring back disgruntled affiliates (although maybe not Idaho or Oregon). Second, some of the state affiliates like CP of NM which choose a different candidate didn’t join the Life and Liberty Party. I originally had thought that the Life and Liberty Party would gain at least a few of the state parties. Those affiliates could be convinced to rejoin. Third, many of the former CP members who joined the Trump campaign might come back to the CP now. I don’t believe Trump will run in 2024. We will have to see what happens between now and 2024.
I think Rand Paul will probably run for President again in the Republican primaries is 2024. If he does, I hope he runs a better campaign this time than he did last time.
Donald Trump will either win this election challenge, or he will be done in regard to running for office.
@JA: “bring back disgruntled affiliates (although maybe not Idaho or Oregon)”
CP-Idaho has no interest. National CP provides nothing to ballot qualified state parties. It is an insular clique which has stripped initiative, focus and critical resources from the states. It consumes its seed corn for the sake of consolidating power into an unanswerable executive committee…despite its constitution and national by-laws
National CP is constantly embroiled in petty manufactured coups and counter coups of their own making, most based only on rumor and whispers–who’s in, who’s out; he said she said. Wrongly, it meddles in state party affairs, just to impose unquestioning obedience to the junta…Seig heil and all that.
That ain’t liberty. Nor is it parliamentary. It is upside down hypocrisy in a sophomoric clique that never quite graduated from junior high, despite being a sclerotic committee of whining septuagenarians and octogenarians. No fool like an old fool, as it were.