Eleven governors (past or present) sought a major party presidential nomination for the 2016 election, but eight of them have either dropped out or stopped trying to get on presidential primary ballots. By contrast, eight U.S. Senators (past or present) sought a major party presidential nomination, and only three have dropped out. Four Senators (past or present) are doing very well.

The eight governors who declared, and then dropped out or stopped trying to get on ballots, are governors or ex-governors of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Maryland, and New York. The only governors or ex-governors still in the race for a major party nomination are those from Florida, New Jersey, and Ohio (and none of them are doing very well).

The only U.S. Senators who have dropped out are Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, and Jim Webb. Senators or ex-Senators still in the race are Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Rick Santorum.

Among the three major party presidential candidates who have never held elective office but who are prominent enough to have been included in debates, all three are still running (Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina).

Another ex-Governor who is still running, but who is not seeking a major party nomination, is Gary Johnson, seeking the Libertarian nomination.

Filing for the West Virginia presidential primaries closed on Saturday, January 30. Candidates qualify by filing fee of $2,500. The Democratic ballot will list six candidates and the Republican ballot will list eleven. The previous highest number of presidential candidates in a West Virginia Republican presidential primary had been eight.

The six Democrats are: Hillary Clinton, Rocky De La Fuente, Paul T. Farrell Jr, Keith Judd, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders. The eleven Republicans are: Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, David E. Hall, Mike Huckabee, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump.

Paul T. Farrell, one of the lesser-known Democrats, had not qualified in any other state’s presidential primary this year so far. He lives in Huntington, West Virginia.

An Ohio state court will hear Libertarian Party of Ohio v Husted on April 5, 2016. The issue is whether the ballot access bill passed in late 2013 violates the Ohio Constitution. The Ohio Constitution, Article V, sec. 7, says “All nominations for elective state, district, county and municipal offices shall be made at direct primary elections or by petition as provided by law.”

The 2013 bill says that newly-qualifying parties need not submit their petitions until July of election years. Because Ohio primaries are in March in presidential election years and May in other years, newly-qualifying parties can’t nominate by primary, because the primary has already occurred.

The 2013 session of the Ohio legislature ought to have introduced a proposed constitutional amendment, providing that Article V, sec. 7, only applies to large political parties, or only applies to already-established parties. If the legislature had done that, by now the Ohio Constitution might have already been changed and the state wouldn’t have this problem. Ohio is the only state with a Constitution that mandates that all parties nominate by primary. The Oklahoma Constitution says the legislature is free to provide that all parties nominate by primary, but the Oklahoma Constitution does not require the legislature to do that. The California Constitution once required that all parties nominate by primary, but that was repealed in the early 1970’s. In 1951, the National Municipal League’s “A Model Direct Primary System”, authored by Dr. Joseph P. Harris, the nation’s leading expert on election administration, recommended that primaries be given only to parties that had polled 10% of the vote in the last election.