Texas holds a special election on Saturday, June 30, to fill the vacant 27th district seat. Texas special elections do not have party nominees, and no petition is required. Candidates pay a filing fee to get on the ballot. The race has nine candidates, 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans, two independents, and one Libertarian. Here is the candidate list. If no one gets 50%, there will be a runoff in September.
Never before have more than two independents been elected to statewide office around the nation in any one election year. But in 2018, it is likely that three or four states will elect statewide independents, with a fifth state possible as well.
In Vermont, Bernie Sanders will run for re-election as an independent to the U.S. Senate, and he is expected to win. In Maine, Angus King will run for re-election to the Senate, and he is also expected to win. He will benefit from ranked choice voting, which will be in effect in his race. In North Dakota, Secretary of State Al Jaeger is running for re-election as an independent.
No polls seem to have been held in California to determine whether Steve Poizner will win his race for Insurance Commissioner. He is running against State Senator Ricardo Lara, a Democrat. Poizner held the Insurance job in the past, so he is well-known, and personally wealthy.
In Alaska, independent Governor Bill Walker is running for re-election, again as an independent. Polls show him in third place, with about 25% of the vote, but the polls are not very meaningful at this point because no one even knows who the Republican nominee will be. The primary is August 21.
In 2006 and 2012, two states elected statewide independents, in each case to the U.S. Senate. Those states were Connecticut and Vermont in 2006, and Maine and Vermont in 2012. Also in 1936, two statewide independents were elected: William Langer, Governor of North Dakota; and George Norris, U.S. Senator for Nebraska.
No one filed a petition to be on the Illinois general election ballot for U.S. House, 3rd district, and the deadline has now passed. The Republican nominee in that district is Arthur Jones, an open neo-Nazi. See this story. The story says that Republicans wanted to recruit a candidate to petition onto the general election ballot, but the requirement of over 14,000 valid signatures is too difficult. That same 5% petition requirement for U.S. House is under court attack in U.S. District Court, in the case Gill v Scholz. Discovery is underway.
Republicans say the will find a write-in candidate for the general election in this district.
On June 25, the Third Circuit said it will decide De La Fuente v Cortes, 17-3378, without oral argument. The three judges who now have the case are Patty Shwartz, Richard Nygaard, and Marjorie Rendell. The issue is the Pennsylvania law that restricts who can circulate petitions to get a candidate on a primary ballot. The law says they must be voters who are registered in Pennsylvania and who are members of the same party.
Judge Shwartz was also on the panel that earlier issued an opinion in a similar New Jersey case, Wilmoth v Guadagno. That ruling remanded the case back to the U.S. District Court, but said the New Jersey restriction on who can sign a primary petition cannot survive unless it is needed for a compelling reason.
Ballot Access News
June 1, 2018 – Volume 34, Number 1
| This issue was printed on yellow paper. |
Table of Contents
