Working Families Party Had Lowest Gubernatorial Showings in Twenty Years

Posted on by December 9, 2018
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The Working Families Party received its lowest share of the vote in gubernatorial elections last month since 1998.  In Connecticut, where it has only been participating in gubernatorial elections starting in 2010, it was outpolled by the Independent Party, and so drops to fourth line on the ballot.  Its three showings in Connecticut for Governor have been:  2010 2.30%; 2014 2.27%; 2018 1.27%.  All three times it nominated the candidate who was also the Democratic nominee.

In New York, its gubernatorial percentages have been:  1998 1.08%; 2002 1.98%; 2006 3.50%; 2010 3.33%; 2014 3.31%; 2018 1.83%.  All six times, it nominated the candidate who was also the Democratic nominee.  The 2018 percentage is still unofficial; New York hasn’t posted its official returns yet.

In 2018, the only other Working Families gubernatorial nominee was in Oregon, where the party also nominated the Democratic nominee.  In Oregon, the ballot does not let voters choose which party to support in fusion races; there is only a single square on the ballot so the Democratic vote can’t be separated out from the Working Families vote.

Complaint Filed Against Non-Profit Organizations that Sponsored Ohio Candidate Debates and Had No Objective Criteria for Inclusion

Posted on by December 8, 2018
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On December 7, an attorney representing the Ohio Libertarian and Green Parties filed complaints with the IRS against two 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, the Cleveland City Club and the University of Dayton.  The University of Dayton is a private Roman Catholic University.  Organizations with 501(c)(3) status are not permitted to sponsor candidate debates if there are no objective criteria for determining who should be invited, and in the three Ohio gubernatorial general election debates of 2018, these sponsors issued no objective criteria.  They could have had objective criteria that would have resulted in the same outcome (only the Republican and Democratic nominees might have met the criteria), but they didn’t even bother to do set criteria.  Furthermore, they invited the Republican and Democratic nominees and didn’t even reveal this to the Green and Libertarian nominees.