Arizona has never elected an independent candidate to statewide office, to Congress, or to the state legislature, in all the years since it has been a state. But on November 4, an independent candidate for Justice of the Peace (a partisan office) was elected in Seligman. See this story.
This Washington Post story seems to say that Republican nominees for U.S. House received approximately 5,500,000 more votes than Democratic nominees did, although one must study the graph to learn that number. Thanks to Thomas Jones for the link.
Aaron Hamlin has this essay about the 2014 election and approval voting. It is on the web page electology.org, a page set up to advocate for approval voting.
On November 4, fourteen independent candidates were elected to state legislatures.
Two were elected to State Senates: Harri Anne Smith in Alabama, and Edward O’Neill in Rhode Island. Both were incumbents running for re-election.
Twelve were elected to lower houses:
Alaska: Dan Ortiz of Ketchikan
Georgia: incumbent Rusty Kidd
Maine: incumbents Joseph Brooks, James Campbell, Ben Chipman, and Jeffrey Evangelos
Rhode Island: Blake Filippi
Vermont: Alyson Eastman, Barbara S. Murphy, Paul Poirier, Adam Greshin, and Laura Sibilia.
As already posted, eight Progressives were elected in Vermont, so that makes a total of 22 minor party and independent candidates elected to state legislatures this year.
Only 218 independent candidates ran for state legislative seats in November 2014, so 6.4% of them were elected.
Kentucky, like most states, held legislative elections on November 4. The Democratic Party had a 54-46 majority in the State House going into the election. The State House election returns now show that there are 53 Democrats, 46 Republicans, and one seat not settled yet. This is bad news for U.S. Senator Rand Paul. The Republican Party has a majority in the State Senate, and earlier this year the State Senate passed a bill letting individuals run simultaneously for President (or vice-president) and other office. But the Democratic majority in the House wouldn’t pass the bill.
Paul is exploring the idea of asking the Kentucky Republican Party to nominate delegates to the national convention by caucus instead of by presidential primary. See this story.
