Austria held a presidential election on April 24. No one got 50%, so there will be a run-off on May 22. See this wikipedia article about the election. The two candidates in the run-off are Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party, and Alexandier Van der Belle of the Green Party. Austria’s President is the head of state, but not head of government, and therefore not the most powerful office-holder.
On April 29, Rasmussen released this poll for the presidential election in November.
The question is, “If the presidential election is between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, you would…” and then apparently four choices were offered: Trump, Clinton, “vote for some other candidate”, not vote, or undecided. The results are: Clinton 38%, Trump 38%, other 16%, not vote 6%, undecided 2%.
On April 29, the Maine Libertarian Party filed this request for reconsideration of the April 25 denial of injunctive relief. The party had asked the judge to put the party on the ballot, or at least to restore its registrants and allow time for newly-registered party members to be tallied. The basis for the request is that the overwhelming weight of authority says that a December 1, 2015 deadline for a new party to qualify is far too early.
The April 25 order seemed to reflect the judge’s belief that the party wanted to participate in the June 14, 2016 primary, but the party does not wish to do so. The April 25 order had said there would be “chaos” if the party were ordered onto the ballot now, but did not decide the constitutional issue of the early deadline.
On April 29, a Colorado state trial court ruled that a petition is valid, even if the circulator moved during the petition drive and did not re-register at his new address. As a result, Jon Keyser, a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, will be on the August primary ballot. Here is the four-page opinion in Keyser v Williams, Denver District Court 2016-cv-31500.
The candidate needed 10,500 valid signatures and had submitted 16,067. Candidates in Colorado primaries do not need petitions if they have substantial support at a party caucus, but Keyser did not have that caucus support so he was forced to use the petition alternative.
On April 28, retired General James Mattis said he will not be an independent presidential candidate. See this New York Times story. However, William Kristol, who had been trying to persuade him to run, say he will continue searching for a candidate. Kristol is opposed to both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
