Last month, the Western Political Science Association gave the Charles Redd Award for the Best Paper on the Politics of the American West to political scientists Jack Citrin, Gabriel Lenz, and Douglas Ahler. The award was for their 2013 paper, “Do open primaries help moderate candidates? An experimental test on the 2012 California primary.”

That paper, which was published in 2013, concluded that California’s top-two primary in 2012 did not elect more moderate candidates, because the experimental evidence showed that most California voters were not informed about the ideology of candidates in their own districts.

On June 7, SurveyUSA released a poll for the U.S. Senate race in Georgia. No one yet knows for sure who the Republican nominee will be, so the poll asked about the general election for two possible sets of candidates. If Jack Kingston is the Republican nominee, the results are: Kingston 43%, Democrat Michelle Nunn 37%, Libertarian Amanda Swafford 6%, undecided 13%.

If David Perdue is the Republican nominee, the results are: Perdue 43%, Nunn 38%, Swafford 6%, undecided 14%.

The poll also includes Governor, with these results: Republican Nathan Deal 44%, Democrat Jason Carter 38%, Libertarian Andrew Hunt 7%, undecided 11%. Both polls break down the results by age, gender, race, partisan affiliation, ideology, and education. The previous best Libertarian showing for Governor of Georgia was 4.01%, in 2010. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

On June 3, the voters of the 5th Supervisorial District of Mendocino County re-elected Dan Hamburg to the Board of Supervisors, for a second continuous term. He is a registered Green and was the Green Party’s nominee for Governor of California in 1998. County Supervisor is a non-partisan office in California. Hamburg was unopposed for re-election to the Board. The 5th district includes the southwest corner of the county.