The Oregon Working Families Party will go off the ballot in August 2016 unless it increases its registration by approximately 1,200 members. The party is working to accomplish that goal. See this story.
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On June 3, the California Secretary of State released new registration data. Compared to the previous tally, the April 8 tally, all the parties except the Democratic Party declined, on a percentage basis. The percentage of no party preference voters also declined.
The new percentages are: Democratic 44.82%; Republican 27.29%; American Independent 2.55%; Libertarian .64%; Green .43%; Peace & Freedom .40%; unqualified parties .55%; no party preference 23.32%.
The Apri percentages were: Democratic 43.65%; Republican 27.52%; American Independent 2.75%; Libertarian .68%; Green .54%; Peace & Freedom .43%; unqualified parties .60%; no party preference 23.85%.
According to this story, the ballot-qualified Independent Party of Delaware recently endorsed Donald Trump for President. Delaware permitted fusion until a few years ago. If Delaware hadn’t recently banned fusion, and if Donald Trump and the Republican presidential elector candidates in Delaware had agreed, then Trump could have been listed on the November 2016 ballot twice, and voters could have voted for him under either party label. Thanks to Michael for the link.
Bloomberg has this essay by Jonathan Bernstein about California’s top-two system. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On June 3, the Field Poll released this California U.S. Senate primary poll. The results: Kamala Harris 30%, Loretta Sanchez 14%, Phil Wyman 4%, Tom Del Beccaro 4%, Greg Conlon 4%, Duf Sundheim 3%, Ron Unz 3%, Gail Lightfoot 3%, other Republican candidates 2%, all other candidates 6%, undecided or not voting 27%.
Among the listed candidates, Harris and Sanchez are Democrats. Gail Lightfoot is a Libertarian. All the others mentioned are Republicans.
In April and May, news organizations sponsored two U.S. Senate debates, and invited only Harris, Sanchez, Del Beccaro, Sundheim, and Unz. They based their decision to invite just these five candidates on polls that only mentioned these five candidates. Naturally, those polls said those five candidates had the most support; the result was pre-ordained. It is amazing that the new Field Poll shows that three candidates who were not invited have equal or greater support than some of the candidates who were invited. One would have thought that the publicity from those two televised debates would have put the included candidates above all others, but that is not true.