June 5 was the New Jersey petition deadline for the nominees of unqualified parties, and independent candidates, to get on the ballot. The Libertarian Party has Murray Sabrin on the ballot for U.S. Senate, and the Green Party has Madelyn R. Hoffman on for U.S. Senate. There are also four independent candidates.
On June 5, Montana held primaries for the Republican, Democratic, and Green Parties. No primary was held for the Libertarian Party because it had no contests. The vote for U.S. Senate in the Green Party primary was: Steve Kelly 955; Timothy Adams 619.
The Democratic Party is still trying to persuade a state court that the Green Party should not be on the ballot. Assuming the party remains on, Kelly will be the first U.S. Senate nominee for the Montana Green Party since 2002. Kelly has a long history with the Green Party, and had won a lawsuit against the independent candidate petition deadline in 2012, at a time when the Green Party wasn’t on the ballot.
Independent candidate Steve Poizner, running for California Insurance Commissioner, received approximately 44% of the vote, in a race that included two Democrats, a Peace & Freedom member, but no Republicans. He will run against Democratic State Senator Ricardo Lara in November. He held the same position 2006-2010, but for that term, he had been elected as a Republican. UPDDATE: here is a link to the Secretary of State’s election returns page.
If he wins in November, he will be the first non-major member to be elected to a statewide partisan post in California since 1914, when Progressive Party nominee Hiram Johnson was re-elected Governor.
The 2018 turnout is estimated to be 31.5% of the number of registered voters. Turnout for other California midterm primaries has been:
1978 68.9%
1982 52.7%
1986 40.5%
1990 41.5%
1994 35.1%
1998 42.5%
2002 34.6%
2006 33.6%
2010 33.3%
2014 25.2%
Assuming the 31.5% estimate is correct, that would make 2018 the second-lowest midterm primary in California history.
It appears that all of the U.S. House districts carried by Hillary Clinton in November 2016, but which now have Republican Representatives, will have one Republican and one Democrat on the November 2018 election.
Max Linn is a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Maine. He needed 2,000 valid signatures to get on the June 12 primary ballot. After he was determined to have enough valid signatures by various town clerks, the Secretary of State still removed him from the ballot. However, all the ballots had already been printed, so the Secretary of State plans to notify all voters at the polls that if they vote for Linn, their votes won’t be counted. Of course, Linn has already received some absentee votes.
On June 4, Linn filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Secretary of State’s action. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torresen will hold a hearing on June 6 at 4 pm. Here is Linn’s complaint. The case is Alexander v Dunlap, 1:18cv-220.
On June 4, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion in the wedding cake case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 16-111. As Rick Hasen points out, the decision turned on the fact that one of the members of the governmental body that had penalized the baker make comments showing bias against religion. Hasen writes here that this principle could influence the pending lawsuits on gerrymandering. Some legislators, who have voted for gerrymanders, have expressed the viewpoint that they are deliberately creating a gerrymander in order to hurt the other major party.
Similarly, when the Green and Constitution Parties were suing Tennessee over its severe rules for new political party access to the ballot, the party’s attorney tried to present evidence that the Tennessee legislators who had voted against bills easing the requirement had openly said in committee that they wanted to keep minor parties off the ballot. But the U.S. District Court Judge who was hearing the case refused to allow that information into the record. The Masterpiece Cakeshop precedent will be helpful in future ballot access cases, when there is evidence of state legislators’ intent.
