Josh Mahony, the only Democrat who filed to run for U.S. Senate in Arkansas in 2020, withdrew, after the filing deadline had passed. See this story. If the Democratic Party is not permitted to replace him, the only candidates on the November ballot with be the Republican incumbent and the Libertarian nominee. UPDATE: there is also an independent candidate, Dan Whitfield, who expects to collect the needed 10,000 signatures by the May 1 petition deadline. The law does not permit him to start collecting until January 1, 2020, and then he has 90 days to get his signatures.
Well, at least I have solace in knowing Arkansas Democrats are rarely worth it anyway, though it’s a pity another third-party option didn’t get in there.
In theory another third party could sue Arkansas over the September 2019 deadline. In the past the courts threw out the Arkansas April petition deadline for new parties in 1977 in American Party v Jernigan. And they threw it out again in 1996 in the Reform Party case, when it was in January.
The deadline issue wasn’t very important in the 2019 Libertarian case because the Libertarians did the petition by the September 2019 deadline (that is, they got 10,000 valid signatures by then). So a new case by some other party would be useful.
EQUAL ballot access test(s) for ALL INDIVIDUAL candidates.
ALL ballot access ops since 1968 = JUNK.
ANY threats/bribes NOW for ALL candidates – esp. for POWER offices ???
And no matter how well the Libertarians do in the Senate election, it still won’t help them retain ballot status, because the only elections that applies to are President and Governor. Ridiculous.
My guess is that just somehow the Democrats will be allowed to make a replacement. This replacement mechanism will not apply to anyone but Demorepublicrats but what the hell… this is America!
It is also possible an independent could petition. The deadline for that is May, thanks to a recent lawsuit that struck down the old Arkansas non-presidential petition deadline, Moore v Martin.
if no Democrat gets on the ballot, it will be an interesting campaign.