Collin Corbett, a former Illinois Republican Party consultant, has filed 37,000 signatures to be an independent candidate for Governor. See this story. He is not the only minor party or independent candidate for Governor who filed, but he seems to be the only one who may survive a petition challenge, if all the gubernatorial petitions are challenged.
It is possible that in 2026, the only states in which the only candidates for any statewide race are Republicans and Democrats will be Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, and Virginia. Two states, Utah and Washington, don’t have any statewide races this year. Utah will have minor party or independent candidates on the ballot for U.S. House (the office at the top of the ballot), but Washington won’t. New York will have four parties on the ballot but the only statewide candidates will be Republicans and Democrats.
NeverTrump Rhino?
Even 37,000 probably won’t be enough if past minor party/independent efforts are any indication; usually the number needed for guaranteed survival is around 50,000. Might as well go ahead and add Illinois to the list unfortunately.
Depends on whether there’s a challenge. I gather they are becoming more common…
Also where, how and by whom sigs are gathered. Cook county is Baez especially Chicago and most especially the hood, but you can get good validity in any of them if you know what you’re doing. Unfortunately, the places where it’s easiest to gather signatures and the people most likely to sign are the worst validity.
Quality also goes down if pros figure out they don’t get checked before they get paid and if they can subcontract with a bunch of bums, street hustlers, unemployed and underemployed people, students etc.
Colleges are bad unless you have someone who’s skilled at a working those. Festivals or anywhere people get drunk and high like bar districts tend to be bad for anyone not skilled at getting good validity there. Transit stops can get really sloppy, especially when you most want to be there at rush hour. Government buildings which cater primarily to poor folks who move around a lot require extra work on the part of petitioners to get good validity, but they can get petitions signed a lot more quickly and easily at those exact same places by those exact same people if they don’t bother to try to get good validity at all and especially if they use that opportunity to find subcontractors.
Down state, especially if you can manage to get permission or forgiveness at a solid place like a grocery store in a middle class area, you can get good validity, but signatures are harder to come by and those locations doubly so.
50 k isn’t necessarily challenge proof for 25 k good in Illinois. I’ve seen 60+ k fail.
I thought gay commie Chase Oliver was running in Georgia. Does he suck too much to get signatures?
He suspended his campaign..