Jamie LaBranche is an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Louisiana this year. He was unable to meet the new ballot access requirements for independent candidates. The law required 2,500 signatures, due February 13, and only voters who are not registered in a qualified party can sign the petition. He has filed a pro se federal lawsuit, LaPlace v State, m.d., 3:26cv-139. Here is the Complaint.
On February 27, the Conservative Party of Delaware, which is ballot-qualified, voted to become the Delaware affiliate of the American Solidarity Party.
The American Solidarity Party is also ballot-qualified in Florida.
On March 4, Greg Ballard, former Mayor of Indianapolis, said he will run as an independent candidate for Indiana Secretary of State this year. See this story. He will need 36,943 signatures. No statewide independent petition has succeeded in Indiana since 1992, when Ross Perot ran as an independent presidential candidate.
Indiana has no gubernatorial nor U.S. Senate election this year. Secretary of State is the most important statewide office up, and is at the top of the 2026 ballot.
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, Joe Slavet, a Republican businessman from Silicon Valley who had been running for Governor of California, announced that he won’t run. He had been considered one of the prominent Republicans running, but the other two Republicans, Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, were far ahead of him.
