Last month, Constitution Party nominees for U.S. House received 225,303 votes. This is the highest the party has ever received for U.S. House in its entire history.
The only previous year that was close was 2010. If the 2010 American Independent Party vote for U.S. House were included in the Constitution Party’s total, 2010 would have been better. But the American Independent Party ceased being part of the Constitution Party in 2008.
An analysis of the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr vote shows that he received his highest percentages in counties that were more pro-Trump than that state as a whole. However, he also received his very highest support in counties with a Native American majority, and those counties were more pro-Harris, so the two factors must be weighed together to determine if his presence in the race helped either Trump or Harris.
Kennedy has long been intensely interested in Native American welfare, and Native Americans have long admired him for that. When Kennedy announced his vice-presidential nominee in Oakland, California, Native American speakers and performers were an important part of the meeting.
In the 22 counties with a Native American majority, and in which Kennedy was on the ballot, he received 2.49% of the total vote. This contrasts the the nation as a whole, in which he only received .98% of the vote in the states where he was on the ballot.
A large majority of the Native American vote went for Harris, despite some early news reports that reported the opposite. See this analysis from the Brookings Institution.
Setting aside the relatively small number of Native American-majority counties, one sees that in a large majority of states in which Kennedy was on the ballot, his best county in that state was a county that was more pro-Trump than that state as a whole. This tends to show that Kennedy’s support came at the expense of Trump.
Kennedy was on the ballot in 30 states. In four of them his best county was a Native American-majority county (Alaska, Montana, New Mexico, and South Dakota). Setting those aside, one finds that in 21 states Kennedy’s strongest county was a county that was more pro-Trump than that state as a hole. In only five states was the best Kennedy county a county that was more pro-Harris than that state as a whole. Those five states were Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Mississippi, and Rhode Island.
Alaska has no counties, so this analysis substitute state representative districts for Alaska. Kennedy’s best “county” was Alaska’s 38th State House District, which could be named “Bethel”, and where Kennedy got 5.58% of the vote.
Eleven states held gubernatorial elections on November 5, 2024. The share of the vote received by minor party and independent candidates was 4.4% of the total. Virtually half of the “other” vote went to Libertarian nominees. The party had gubernatorial nominees in seven states, and they received 2.2% of the total gubernatorial vote.
On November 5, Phillip Lyman received 200,551 write-in votes for Governor of Utah. He is an outgoing Utah Republican state legislator, and he had lost the Republican gubernatorial primary in June 2024. His write-in total amount to 13.57% of the general election vote.
Late in the general election campaign, another individual, Richard Lyman, had also filed as a write-in candidate for Governor. Phil Lyman sued Richard Lyman in state court, alleging that Richard’s campaign was a dirty trick so that if a voter just wrote in “Lyman”, intending to vote for Phil Lyman, the vote wouldn’t count because with two Lymans running as write-ins, election officials wouldn’t know which candidate the voter intended to support. The case was Phillip Lyman v Richard Lyman, Salt Lake County, 240908314. Richard Lyman then withdrew his write-in candidacy so as to settle the lawsuit.
Phillip Lyman, as a legislator, represented southeast Utah and campaigned on taking more control of federal wilderness land.
No one has ever been elected Governor of any state via write-in votes, in the entire history of government-printed ballots.
I have divided the United States into five regions, and calculated the percentage of the vote that each minor party and independent candidate received in each region, in the states where he or she was on the ballot.
The five regions are: East, South, Midwest, West, and Border. “Border” means the areas that had slavery but did not secede: Delaware, D.C., Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Oklahoma, and West Virginia. My division of the nation, using five regions, avoids the ambiguity of which region to put those states. For example, Oklahoma…is it a southern state or a midwestern state? Creating a “border” region is one way to handle the question.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. got .98% of the vote in the states in which he was on the ballot. However, he was only on the ballot before 50.1% of the voters. His regional percentages: West 1.29%; Border .95%; Midwest .88%; East .62%; South .60%.
Jill Stein got .64% of the vote in states in which voters could vote for her without having to cast a write-in. These states had 80.0% of the electorate. Her regional percentages: West .86%; East .70%; Border .68%; Midwest .57%; South .50%.
Chase Oliver got .47% of the vote where he was on the ballot, which included 88.8% of the nation. His regional percentages: Border .55%; West .52%; Midwest .49%; East .43%; South .42%.
Claudia De la Cruz got .23% of the vote where she was on the ballot, which included 42.0% of the nation. Her regional percentages: West .38%; East .24%; South .12%; Midwest .08%; and in the Border region she wasn’t on the ballot anywhere.
Cornel West got .18% of the vote were he was on the ballot, which was 26.2% of the nation. His regional percentages: East .38%; South .21%; West .19%; Midwest .12%; and in the Border region he wasn’t on the ballot anywhere.
Randall Terry got .10% of the vote where he was on the ballot, which was 27.4% of the nation. His regional percentages: Midwest .12%; West .11%; South .09%; East .07%; and in the Border region he wasn’t on anywhere.
I only did this analysis for candidates who were on the ballot before at least 25% of the electorate. None of the other candidates were on in more than seven states.
