On Sunday, June 1, the second-to-last day of the Louisiana legislative session, the House passed the Senate version of HB 431, so the bill moving the presidential primary from mid-March to early-March has passed and been sent to the Governor. Assuming it is passed into law, it will not be the earliest presidential primary in Louisiana history. In 2008 the state voted on February 9. Thanks to FrontloadingHQ for this news.
The Atlanta Progressive News has this story about the pending Green Party-Constitution Party challenging Georgia’s ballot access procedures for non-major party presidential candidates.
On Saturday evening, May 31, the New York Working Families Party endorsed Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic candidate, for Governor. Although technically all ballot-qualified parties in New York nominate by primary, the endorsement means Cuomo has qualified for the WFP primary, and it is virtually certain that no other candidate will be on the party’s primary ballot for Governor. See this New York Times story. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
On May 23, The Tarrance Group released a poll for U.S. House, 2nd district of West Virginia. The results: Republican Alex Mooney 39%, Democrat Nick Casey 29%, independent Ed Rabel 10%, Libertarian Davy Jones 3%, undecided 19%.
Rabel is a well-known native of West Virginia who was a television network reporter for overseas news for 34 years. He appeared on CBS 1965-1985 and NBC 1985-1998. His autobiography, “Lies, Wars and Other Misadventures” was published in 2012. If he gets 10% in the November 2012 election, that will be the best showing for a non-major party candidate for U.S. House in West Virginia, who had opponents from both major parties, since 1976. In 1976 independent candidate Ken Hechler had placed a close second, with 36.7% for U.S. House in West Virginia’s 4th district. Here is Rabel’s campaign web page.
Rabel had intended to run in 2014 as a Mountain Party candidate, but then early this year he had decided to run as an independent instead. He would probably do better if West Virginia did not have a straight-ticket device. Thanks to Michael for the link to the poll.
Ballotpedia is a web page that began in 2006. At first it had information solely about ballot measures in each state. The founders of the page have expanded the contents to many more fields, including details on the existing ballot access laws for candidates for federal and state office. See here.
