An Institute of Governmental Studies poll of the California gubernatorial election of 2018, released June 8, shows these results: Gavin Newsom 22%, Antonio Villaraigosa 17%, John Cox 9%, David Hadley 7%. Newsom and Villaraigosa are Democrats and both have declared. Cox and Hadley are Republicans. Cox has declared his candidacy, but Hadley so far has only said he is exploring running. He is a former Assemblymember.

Even though June 2018 is a year away, these results show the potential for a November 2018 race between two Democrats, with voters not being permitted to vote for anyone else in the election itself. That would resemble the 2018 California U.S. Senate race, which was also between two Democrats.

On June 7, the Wisconsin voters who sued their state over its partisan gerrymander, and who won their case in a three-judge U.S. District Court, filed this brief in the U.S. Supreme Court. The voters hope that the U.S. Supreme Court (which won’t decide whether to hear the state’s appeal until October 2017 at the earliest) will not stay the lower court decision. If no stay is granted by the U.S. Supreme Court, then the Wisconsin legislature will be forced to redistrict the legislative districts this year, or else the U.S. District Court will do it this year.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether to grant a stay at its June 8 conference, but the news from that conference won’t be announced until June 12. Thanks to Barry Burden for the link.

On June 7, the Colorado Secretary of State determined that the Unity Party has the needed 1,000 registrations to become a qualified party. See this press release from the Secretary of State’s office.

Colorado won’t keep track of the number of registered voters in unqualified parties, unless that unqualified party had previously placed a statewide nominee on the ballot. The Unity Party nominee for U.S. Senate petitioned onto the 2014 ballot, and also the 2016 ballot, so it had the right to a tally.

The only other parties that have become ballot-qualified in Colorado by this method have been the Libertarian, Green, and Constitution Parties. Several other qualified minor parties in the past got on by the alternate method of collecting 10,000 signatures. The most recent instance was in 2011 when Americans Elect qualified. Thanks to Independent Political Report for this news.