On July 21, President Obama endorsed statehood for the District of Columbia. See this story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
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On July 18, Rasmussen Reports released this poll for the Oklahoma gubernatorial election. Even though respondents were asked, “If the 2014 election for Governor of Oklahoma was held today, would you vote for Republican Mary Fallin or Democrat Joe Dorman?”, 7% of respondents volunteered “someone else.” The poll results are: Fallin 45%, Dorman 40%, “someone else” (volunteered) 7%, undecided 8%.
Also on the ballot for Governor are Richard Prawdienzski, Libertarian; and Kimberly Willis, independent. Prawdienzski’s ballot label is “independent” because of Oklahoma’s ballot access laws.
Originally there were three candidates with the “independent” label on the ballot. The Democratic nominee filed challenges to the ballot position of Willis and Joe Sills. The challenge to Sills removed him from the ballot, on the grounds that he had once plea bargained to a crime and thus doesn’t meet the constitutional qualifications to be Governor. The challenge to Willis claimed that she had not been registered outside the Republican Party for the required six months, but Willis proved that she had changed her registration from “Republican” to “independent” more than six months before she filed.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was the leading proponent of California’s top-two ballot measures, both in 2004 (when the proposal lost) and in June 2010 (when it won). The July 20 Sacramento Bee has this discussion with Rob Stutzman, who was the Governor’s chief of staff for communications and who still supports top-two systems. In the piece, which discusses the failure of a leading independent candidate for Secretary of State this year to qualify for the November ballot, Stutzman says, “I think an independent can win in a general election, but its extremely difficult to advance through the top-two primary.”
The piece also includes comments from Darry Sragow, a former supporter of Americans Elect. Sragow seems to sidestep taking a position on whether top-two systems are good or bad for independent candidates.
Even though both Stutzman and Sragow are experts on political campaigns, neither one of them mentions the subsidiary harm done by California’s top-two law, relative to independent candidates. The California law does not permit an independent candidate to have the ballot label “independent” on the ballot. The candidate is stuck with the unappealing label, “no party preference”. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
On July 21, the Independent Party of Oregon released the results of its primary for this year’s nominations. For Governor, Independent Party members were asked to choose between Democratic incumbent John Kitzhaber, and Republican nominee Dennis Richardson. Richardson prevailed, by a vote of 677 to 413. There were 50 ballots cast in which the office was left blank.
Therefore, November 2014 ballots will list Richardson as “Republican, Independent.” Oregon permits fusion, but when a candidate is nominated by two parties, there is still just one square next to his or her name; there won’t be a separate tally of votes in November for the number of voters who wished to vote for Richardson as the Independent Party nominee.
The Independent Party pays for its own primaries. However, probably by 2016, the party will have increased its registration to 5% of the total registration. If that happens, the government will pay for the party’s primary.
On July 21, Sienna College Research Institute released a poll for the New York gubernatorial race, and other statewide races. For Governor, the poll separates respondents by many variables, including region. The poll shows that Howie Hawkins, the Green Party nominee, is receiving 11% in upstate New York, but 2% in New York city and 3% in the New York city suburban counties. See the details here; scroll down to question 36.
The results are somewhat similar to the actual election returns in Illinois in 2006, when Green Party nominee Richard Whitney received 11.6% of the vote in downstate Illinois, but 8.3% in Cook County. In both cases, Greens had less support in the large metropolitan center than in other parts of the state.
The new New York poll shows these statewide results: Democrat Andrew Cuomo 60%, Republican Rob Astorino 23%, Hawkins 6%, undecided 11%. There will probably be a Libertarian gubernatorial nominee on the ballot as well, but the poll did not mention any other candidates. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.