This year, Tennessee is electing all members of its legislature. In the 93rd State House district, no one is on the general election ballot. No one had petitioned to run in either the Democratic nor Republican primary except the incumbent, G. A. Hardaway, a Democrat. He needed 25 valid signatures. He submitted 47, but only 24 were valid. This was discovered on March 17, and the deadline for anyone to run as an independent had already passed, on March 10.

Tennessee permits write-ins in primaries, but no one can be nominated unless his or her write-in total is 5% of the number of voters who cast a ballot. Probably Representative Hardaway could have surmounted that barrier, but on April 23 he died. No one filed as a declared write-in candidate in either major party primary, so by then it was impossible for anyone to be on the November ballot.

Fortunately, the deadline to be a declared write-in in the general election was not until September 14, and there is one Democrat who filed to be a write-in candidate, Kyler Gilkey. The 93rd district is in Memphis.

The Yankee National Party was founded in 2020 to work for independence for the New England states. In 2026 it has one nominee on the ballot with the party label. Deena Steinberg is running for Connecticut State House, 12th district.

The only other party in the U.S. still in existence that favors independence for any particular state is the California National Party. It ran its state chair, Sean Forbes, for Governor in the June 2026 primary. He was not on the primary ballot but he filed as a declared write-in, and received 22 votes.

On September 14, the Albuquerque Journal published this story about the Forward Party’s ballot access lawsuit, which is now pending in the Tenth Circuit. The story mentions that New Mexico has 70 state legislative races this year, and in 39 of them, only one candidate is on the ballot.