On June 2, Arkansas Representative Nate Bell switched from being a Republican to being an independent. See this story. He also says he does not plan to run for re-election in 2016.
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Real Clear Politics has this commentary by James K. Glassman, criticizing the Commission on Presidential Debates. Glassman is a former Under Secretary of State, and a proponent of “Change the Rule” and “Level the Playing Field” and its ideas for improving entry into the presidential debates. Real Clear Politics holds itself out as non-partisan and non-ideological, but commentators generally think of it as a web page that leans to the Republican/conservative side.
By coincidence, if one looks at the link, one sees in the right-hand part of the page current polls for each major party’s presidential races. If one uses the data on those polls, and applies a hypothetical 15% polling rule for determining entry into the presidential primary debates, there could be no presidential primary debates for Republicans, because either one Republican, or zero Republicans, currently polls as much as 15%. The Commission on Presidential Debates only handles general election presidential debates and won’t let candidates below 15% into their debates.
According to an article in the June 5 New York Times, there are likely to be fifteen candidates for the Republican presidential nomination who have the requisite qualifications to be acknowledged by the media and by the Republican National Committee to be bona fide candidates. They are:
1. Jeb Bush
2. Ben Carson
3. Chris Christie
4. Ted Cruz
5. Carly Fiorina
6. Lindsay Graham
7. Mike Huckabee
8. Bobby Jindal
9. John Kasich
10. George Pataki
11. Rand Paul
12. Rick Perry
13. Marco Rubio
14. Rick Santorum
15. Scott Walker
Approximately half of the 2016 presidential primaries will be in March. States with March presidential primaries will print their ballots before any caucuses or primaries have taken place. So even though it is likely that some candidates will drop out after the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire and South Carolina presidential primaries, the states with March presidential primaries will have printed their ballots before such withdrawals.
These ten states with March presidential primaries put all candidates on the ballot who are discussed in the major news media, or else they include all candidates recognized by state party leaders: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas. It seems probable that those states will have approximately 15 candidates on their Republican presidential primary ballots. Yet no state legislator in any state this year has introduced any bill to make presidential primary ballot access more difficult. It seems that state officials do not really believe that as many as 15 candidates on a ballot for one office really “confuses” voters.
This National Journal article says North Carolina is almost certain to move its presidential primary from February to March.
On June 5, Michigan Goernor Rick Snyder signed SB 329, which puts the candidates for Flint city office this year back on the ballot, even though they were late with their petitions due to relying on inaccurate information from the Flint city clerk.