Three statewide initiative petitions were filed in Arizona this year. According to this story, all three of them face court challenges.
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On July 15, the Federal Election Commission asked that Better for America not be permitted to file an amicus curiae brief in Level the Playing Field v FEC. Better for America is the group that hopes to recruit a prominent conservative to run for president as an independent this year. The FEC says it is too late for any more amicus briefs, because all the briefs of the parties to the case have been submitted.
Florida is the only state in which the filing deadline to file as a write-in for president in the general election is earlier than the deadline for a new party to get on the ballot for President. The Florida write-in filing deadline was July 12. This year, six independent presidential candidates and one minor party candidate filed to have write-ins counted.
The minor party nominee is Zoltan Istvan of the Transhumanist Party. Istvan lives in Mill Valley, Califoria.
The six independents are: Laurence J. Kotlikoff of Brookline, Massachusetts, a prominent economist; Richard Duncan of Aurora, Ohio, who usually gets on the ballot in Ohio but no other state; Cherunda Fox of Detroit, Michigan; Samuel Tabor of Mobeetie, Texas; Tony Valdivia of San Antonio, Texas; and Andrew Basiago of Charlotte, North Carolina. Basiago claims to have traveled back in time; see this story.
On July 17, an ABC News/Washington Post poll was released for the presidential election. It shows that the combined effect of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein in the race does not tilt the identity of the winner. When respondents are asked only about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Clinton has 47% and Trump has 43%.
When Johnson and Stein are included, the results are: Clinton 42%, Trump 38%, Johnson 8%, Stein 5%. Thus, Clinton leads Trump by 4 percentage points, in a 2-way race or a 4-way race.
On July 16, the West Virginia Green Party (which is named the Mountain Party) nominated Charlotte Pritt for Governor, and she accepted. In 1996 she was the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of West Virginia. She lost the 1996 general election with 45.8% of the total vote cast. The Republican who defeated her in 1996, Cecil Underwood, had himself also been elected Governor in 1956. See this story.