An Investors Business Daily/TIPP national poll released Monday gives Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson 11% against Clinton at 39% and Trump at 35%.
When Johnson is omitted from the poll choices, Clinton gets 45% and Trump gets 40%, once again going against conventional wisdom on who is hurt by Johnson being in the race.
According to this story, Republicans are spending money in the California U.S. House race, 24th district, to bolster Democrat Helene Schneider and to injure another Democrat, Salud Carbajal. Carbajal is a Santa Barbara County Supervisor and is backed by most leaders of the Democratic Party in the district. Schneider is the Mayor of Santa Barbara. Republicans would rather run against Schneider than against Carbajal.
No incumbent is running in the 24th district, and the district is fairly closely balanced between the two major parties. Four candidates in the race have raised over $500,000. They include the two Democrats mentioned above, and two Republicans, Katcho Achadjian (a state legislator) and Justin Fareed, a 28-year-old who has raised money all over the United States from conservatives. This is a district in which, conceivably, only two Republicans might appear on the general election ballot; or conceivably only two Democrats might appear on the general election ballot. As the story mentions, near the bottom, the technique of one major party trying to influence the balance between two candidates in the other major party has been rare in the past, but is likely to grow more common in top-two systems.
On June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Bethune-Hill v Virginia State Board of Elections, 15-680. The issue is whether Virginia’s state house redistricting plan is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Plaintiffs argue that the legislature squeezed as many blacks into a small number of state house districts, so as to minimize their impact on a larger number of districts. The lower court had upheld the plan 2-1.
If the U.S. Supreme Court invalidates the existing districts, there would be no impact this calendar year, because Virginia legislative elections are in odd years.
On June 6, the First Circuit heard arguments in Libertarian Party of New Hampshire v Gardner, 15-2068. The issue is the 2014 law that makes it illegal to collect signatures on the party petition during an odd year. Here is a news story about the argument.
Jeff 4 Justice asked Bernie Sanders on June 4 why Sanders is only running in the Democratic Party process. Sanders responded, but didn’t really answer in a responsive way.
