This news story says Maine Congressman Jared Golden may perhaps run for Governor in 2026 as the nominee of the No Labels Party, which is ballot-qualified in Maine but which has not yet had any nominees in Maine for any partisan office.
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The Mississippi legislature has adjourned. HB 38 failed to pass. It would have disrupted Mississippi’s law on the order of candidates on the ballot. Mississippi now lists candidates on the general election in alphabetical order of surname, for candidates who are nominees of a party. But HB 38 would have said that the nominees of parties that had polled 10% of the vote for president in the last election should be listed first.
HB 38 had passes the House on February 5, but it made no progress in the Senate.
On April 1, Tennessee Senate Bill 777 was defeated in the Senate State and Local Government Committee, when on Senator seconded the bill. An identical bill, HB 886, also failed to advance this year, and both bills are now dead.
Bills to close Tennessee primaries were also defeated in 2023 and 2019. Tennessee has always had open primaries. The voter registration form doesn’t ask about party membership.
In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Tashjian v Republican Party of Connecticut that if a party with a government-administered primary wants to let independents vote in its primaries, the state government cannot block that desire. Many state Democratic Parties have exercised their Tashjian rights to let independents vote in Democratic primaries. However, in Florida, the Democratic Party has never invited independents to vote in its primaries.
But, according to Open Primaries, the state chair of the Florida Democratic Party, Nikki Fried, now supports the party letting independents vote in its primaries. Fried was re-elected State chair on January 25, 2025.
RESTRICTIVE WYOMING BALLOT ACCESS BILL KILLED
On February 28, Wyoming State Senator Tara Nethercott, the Majority Leader of the Senate, exercised her power to kill HB 173, the bill that would have severely injured ballot access for independent candidates. She did this by not allowing the bill to receive a vote on the Senate floor.
The bill would have increased the number of signatures from 2% of the last vote, to 3% for statewide office, and 5% for legislative and county offices. Also, it would have moved the petition deadline from late August to early June, and furthermore required independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy in May. Already Wyoming had the most severe requirements of any state, in relation to presidential elections, on a percentage basis. No other state requires a presidential candidate running outside the major parties to submit a petition greater than 2% of the last vote, when the easiest method in each state is compared.
The bill would have given Wyoming the earliest deadline of any state for a presidential candidate running outside of the two major parties to declare his or her candidacy. Legislators in the House and on the Senate Committee ignored the U.S. Supreme Court decision Anderson v Celebrezze, even though that decision was brought to their attention.
The bill had passed the Wyoming House by a vote of 49-11. Then it had passed the Senate Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee by a vote of 4-1.
Chuck Gray, the Secretary of State, strongly supported the bill. No Wyoming news media expressed any opinion about the bill, and gave it very little publicity.