American Independent Party Likely to Choose a New Nominee

Posted on by August 21, 2024

The American Independent Party of California had already nominated Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for president this year.  But California passed a law last year mandating that parties certify their presidential nominees by August 22, one of the earliest such deadlines in the nation.  And because of that deadline, the party will probably choose a new nominee soon, even before the Kennedy press conference set for August 23.

The most likely outcome is that the AIP will nominate Donald Trump, who is also the Republican nominee.  In 2016 the party had nominated Trump, and he had appeared on the November ballot with both party labels.

Comments

American Independent Party Likely to Choose a New Nominee — 48 Comments

  2. Back in 2016 Trump hadn’t revealed how much of a traitor he is yet though. In 2020 the AIP nominated even clown Rocky de la Fuente over traitor Trump. James Bradley and Andrew George Rummel ran for the AIP’s presidential nomination earlier this year, why not nominate one of them? Alternatively, why not go back to the AIP’s Constitution Party roots and co-nominate Randall Terry?

  5. Back in 2016 I was rooting for Trump to win with his competing sets of electors. Just to see what would happen.

  6. Trump can’t win California no matter how many parties nominates him. HOWEVER, if the AIP switches candidates tomorrow, then we know what Kennedy’s announcement on Friday is going to be.

  8. The question is who would the Reform Party, Natural Law Party and Alliance Party vote for. They are all centrist parties and tend to vote for centrist candidates (as did the California party when it backed Alliance party nominee in 2020). The only candidate who fits that criteria is the Nirvana musician, Kris Nov. He was affiliated with Forward party and is running under his own party as Forward party has decided to bypass this presidential election. Solidarity party also has some centrist tendancies.

    So these 4 parties could back the same Presidential candidate.

  11. Alliance was divided. They had access in at least 3 states, but only one picked Kennedy. Natural Law of Michigan picked Kennedy, but the other Natural Law branches picked Cornel West. The American Independent Party joined with Alliance, Reform, and Natural Law to pick Roque de la Fuente in 2020.

    If anything, their best choice would be to go all-in on Cornel West, knowing he can’t win, but with the hope that West will get 5% of the vote as the most prominent 3rd party candidate (who’s not Green or Libertarian). That way, they can all keep their qualified status in the states. The best case for them is to ally and try to push West to drain votes from Commie Kamala even if West doesn’t align with their centrist status.

    That’s the strategic move here. Since most states don’t have fusion tickets, picking Chase Oliver or Jill Stein isn’t in the cards.

  12. When are the deadlines for when it’s too late to be taken off the ballot even if he asks to be?

  18. When Trump was the AIP nominee in 2016 the CA GOP refused to coordinate with the AIP and then California Sec. of State Alex Padilla inexplicably accepted elector slates from both the AIP and CA GOP. California only gives a candidate one ballot line. Two electors appeared on both lists. This meant that Trump had 108 electors for 55 electoral votes.
    If AIP nominated Trump they likely wouldn’t have their elector slate accepted again. Seems probable they would seek to avoid any of that, seeing as how Trump cannot possibly win California.
    What I wrote about the electoral slate snafu at the time: https://okcspowell.medium.com/votes-for-trump-in-california-wont-count-9129683a1140#.girg7cx4j

  20. IMO, if a state has two parties nominate the same Presidential candidate with separate electors, then the parties should be listed on separate lines, their votes combined to determine the Presidential winner, but separated to determine which slate of electors got more votes, and to determine if either of them won major party status.

  21. Another more radical way to determine how Presidential electors are distributed when more than one party nominates the same Presidential candidate, but pledges different electors, is to use proportional ranked choice voting. Each party with a separate slate of electors would have a separate line, and the outcome of how all the electors are distributed would be by giving each party a number of electors proportionate to the final round of totals.

  22. Using proportional ranked choice voting for President in a very blue state like California would be the only way that non-Democratic Party candidates could win any electoral votes.

  24. Actually, proportional approval voting could also result in non-Democrats winning electoral votes in California.

  26. “Why on earth did the AIP nominate RFK, Jr. in the first place.”

    It’s surprising to me that any minor party chose to nominate him. He has been bouncing around like a billiard ball, trying to be all things to all people.

  27. It is kind of annoying that he has essentially betrayed all these minor parties whose support he sought by withdrawing at nearly the latest time that they could replace him with another candidate. One wonders if this wasn’t planned.

  28. IT’s a good thing that the Libertarians chose not to nominate him, or they might be without a candidate right now.

  29. As I recall, and Mr. Seidenberg can correct me if I remember it wrong, in 2020 the Trump campaign notified the American Independent Party that it was not interested in having the AIP ballot line in California in 2020. So, I think that the Trump campaign would again refuse the AIP ballot line in California. Assuming that RFK, Jr. does withdraw it puts the AIP in a pickle with the SOS of California. It’ll be interesting to see how they end
    up resolving this, if RFK, Jr. does withdraw from the campaign.

  30. No candidate is better than child abuse supporter and pro covid mandate Chase Oliver.

  31. I expect the AIP will nominate Randall Terry. They like him, and I think it makes the most sense after RFK Jr drops. But, knowing their erratic nature, they’ll go for Trump or something.

  32. Randall Terry is a better choice for them. Nominating Trump does nothing for them.

  34. Alliance Party also has ballot access in Alaska and Connecticut, I believe

  36. Deemer,

    You are wrong for 2020. That happened in 2016. The AIP is in no pickle. Every is O.K. If the AIP approves the change it will happen.

  37. Chris Powell,

    The AIP and GOP have until 1 October2024 to agree on electors. I see no problem. Why do you see a problem? then it was 55 and now it is 54.

  38. @Solid America
    Absolutely not. I’m not going to pretend like the AIP has chosen good nominations since Alan Keyes. But unless things are even a lot worse than I realized, they have not become a full-blown pro-war, anti-life party, like the American Solidarity Party is, and they will not nominate a banderite warmonger like Peter Sonski, Joel Skousen or Tom Hoefling.

  39. American Solidarity Party Is not pro war, anti life party. Anyway the choice is Peter Solski, Krist Novacec or Cornel West. All have

  40. No, the Alliance Party (affiliated with the Independent Party of Connecticut) does not have automatic ballot access for President in Connecticut. If they didn’t do a ballot drive this year for that particular office, they’ll have to formally file a write-in candidate.

  41. Chris Powell,

    I was not aware of your 2016 article at the time. However the leadership ààa was aware of Amendment 14, Section 2 mof the US Constitution with just one member of the house of representives from California as an outcome.

  45. I’m thinking that the members of the AIP are feeling very annoyed right now that Kennedy abandoned them, just before the deadline for filing their nominees.

  47. “American Solidarity Party Is not pro war, anti life party.”

    According to Peter Sonski himself, it is. And the party platform on the ASP’s website seems to bear him out.

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