Several years ago, Professor Charles Wheelan launched a project to elect several independents to the U.S. Senate, with the hopes that they might hold the balance of power in the Senate. This year his Centrist Project has endorsed three such candidates. They are Larry Pressler in South Dakota, Greg Orman in Kansas, and Jill Bossi in South Carolina. In addition, the Project endorsed Democrat Michelle Nunn in Georgia and Republican incumbent Susan Collins in Maine. See the Centrist Project’s web page here.

Jill Bossi is technically a minor party nominee; the American Party of South Carolina, a new centrist party, nominated her. She has raised $11,470 so far this year.

Larry Pressler, the independent candidate in South Dakota, was in the Senate previously as a Republican, so he has high name recognition in his home state. He has raised $72,656 so far this year.

Greg Orman, the independent in Kansas, has raised $597,163 in donations this year. He declared his candidacy in June and is currently collecting his needed 5,000 signatures, which are due August 4. He is a businessman who announced for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat in January 2008, and raised $568,838 in contributions for the 2008 race, but then he withdrew in February 2008 and returned those contributions.

Mayday, the SuperPAC formed by Lawrence Lessig to work for public funding of congressional campaigns, will announce how it will spend its resources this year on July 21. Mayday has raised $12,000,000, and it will spend the money this year on independent expenditures on behalf of five congressional candidates who will pledge to work for a public funding bill in Congress in 2015.

This Washington Post article mentions some of the wealthy individuals who have contributed to Mayday. It is notable that Peter Thiel, who is considered to be libertarian in his views, and who has supported Ron Paul, is among those who is contributing to Mayday.

The 2014 spending will only be on behalf of Democratic and/or Republican candidates for Congress. Thanks to the Center for Competitive Politics for the link.

On July 15, Chris McDaniel won a Mississippi lower state court order to see the poll books in Jackson County. McDaniel is trying to show that the number of voters who voted in the Democratic primary of June 3, and then voted in the Republican run-off primary on June 24, exceeds the number of votes by which McDaniel lost the run-off primary. See this story. Jackson County contains Pascagoula. It is the fifth most populous county in the state.

UPDATE: see this July 16 story about McDaniel’s plans to challenge the results as soon as he finishes gathering evidence.