On March 4, Seth Bodnar declared as an independent candidate for U.S. Senate from Montana. See this story.

The highest percentage ever received by a U.S. Senate candidate in Montana who was not a Republican or Democratic nominee was in 1912, when the Progressive Party’s candidate, Joseph M. Dixon, polled 32.1%, ahead of the Republican nominee. The 1912 U.S. Senate election was technically an advisory vote, because at the time the U.S. Constitution still required legislators to choose Senators. Montana and a few other western states held advisory U.S. Senate votes to influence whom the legislature should choose.

On March 3, Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, posted a letter on the party’s website. It asks Democratic candidates for Governor not to file if their chances of winning seem low. And it says if they do file, but their chances seem dim, they should announce no later than April 15 that they are suspending their campaign. In California, candidates who file cannot later remove their names from the ballot.

It is unfortunate that Hicks doesn’t publicly call for adding write-in space to the November ballot. California elections generally allow write-in votes, but in 2012 the legislature passed AB 1413, which removed write-in space from the November ballot for congress and partisan state office.

A bill is pending in Oklahoma to add a proposed constitutional amendment to the November 2026 ballot. It would say that every qualified political party is entitled to have a nominee on the general election ballot in all partisan elections. If HJR 1019 passes, and if the initiative for a top-two system has enough valid signatures, then there would be two competing measures on the November 2026 ballot, which would not be compatible with each other. Here is the text of HJR 1019. The bill has a hearing in the House Rules Committee on March 5. The chief sponsor is Representative Eric Roberts ($-Oklahoma City).