Texas has four ballot-qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green. Parties remain on the ballot by either polling 2% for Governor, or 5% for any statewide race. In 2014, there are three statewide partisan races in which no Democrat is running. This makes it virtually certain that both the Libertarian Party and the Green Party will poll over 5% for those races, and thus will be on the ballot in 2016.
The three statewide offices with no Democratic candidates this year are State Supreme Court seat 8; Court of Criminal Appeals seat 4; and Court of Criminal Appeals seat 9.
On another Texas topic, January 2, 2014, was the deadline for any unqualified party to tell the state if it intends to petition in 2014. The Texas Secretary of State’s office says the information as to whether any unqualified party filed that notice by the deadline won’t be known until Monday, January 6.
So will these candidates do some work and receive over 40% of the vote? Or are they line candidates for ballot access.
Texas has a straight-ticket device and I am afraid 40% of the voters will never even look at the entire ballot; they will just use the straight-ticket device and their eyes will never alight on those particular races. So the idea that a Libertarian or Green would get 40% is just not realistic.
10 or 20% would still be fairly decent in Texas, and 40% might well be possible somewhere else given recent controversies such as the NSA spying.
The Libertarians have exceeded 20% in some two-way statewide races with Republicans.
And Rich Whitney of the Illinois Green Party got 10% for governor back in 2006. I think this year could get interesting, if enough voters are fed up enough with the Democrats and Republicans to give voting third party a try.
Which 3rd party holds the record percentage wise in a two way statewide race?
Every election is NEW — regardless of ALL of the moron judges and lawyers in ballot access cases since 1776.
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P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Do you mean in Texas, or the whole country? And what period of time? Obviously in U.S. history, there are many minor parties who won statewide races. But, when minor parties do win, it is almost always not a two-way race. It’s a paradox, but minor parties are far more likely to win a race like Governor or US Senator than a less important statewide race. And, it is virtually unheard of for one of the two major parties to fail to run for Governor.
Richard let’s make it the whole country and just go back to 1971 for two party statewide races involving a 3rd party candidate and a major party candidate. There has to be some success stories out there in the last 43 years.
Check out the Texas Super-state Parliament Election of 2014 which has been part of a unity building exercise since 1995.
Last year Texas Green Party POTUS candidate Rhett Smith [First Freedom] ran for MP Ron Paul’s [Republican] Congressional seat in San Antonio TX and now he running for Judge in the same district as a Libertarian.
Rhett is one of the best team players, he’s on our board with another member Ralph Hoffmann [Republican] who was the chair of the Republican Party county committee when Ron Paul first ran for Congress.
It’s a small world and our team is able to unite with team players. Cool people who understand a little about the nature of team psychology and who like the concept.
Works perfectly well with small amounts of data or large!
The Texas Super-state Parliament (ss9):
http://www.usparliament.org/ss9.php
The best is Mike Fellows, running in 2012 for the partisan office of Clerk of the State Supreme Court. Fellows, the Libertarian nominee, got 43.13% of the vote against the Democratic incumbent.
Your use of the term “moron” is bizarre and irrational; one suspects you use it reflexively. If they were morons, they would not be so successful so consistently.
Jeff D.
Does the Green Party have candidates for any of those offices?
The only statewide candidates I could find are running for the executive positions.
The Texas Greens who filed to seek their party’s nomination for the three judicial posts are: Supreme Court seat 8, Jim Chisolm. Ct of Criminal Appeals seat 4, Judith Sanders-Castro. Ct of Criminal Appeals seat 9, George Joseph Altgelt.