A New York gubernatorial election poll conducted by David Binder Research shows that if the Working Families Party ran its own nominee for Governor of New York this year, the party would poll between 6% and 13%, depending on who its nominee was. Its best showing, 13%, is if New York City’s Public Advocate, Letitia James, was the WFP nominee. See this story.
Texas has four ballot-qualified parties: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, Green. This year it is not expected that any newly-qualifying parties will join them. The only party that had been thought to have the resources to surmount the difficult petition was the 1787 Party founded by Emily Mathews. However, the 1787 Party has decided not to try to petition this year in Texas or any other state, and instead to save its resources for getting on the ballot in all states in 2016.
The California Secretary of State’s web page has a tentative list of candidates for the June 3, 2014 primary for Congress and state office. The final list will be released March 27 and will probably have a handful of additional candidates listed, after disputes over the sufficiency of their petitions is resolved.
For the partisan offices, there are 560 candidates. When these same offices were up in 2010, under the semi-closed primary, there were 654 candidates (that 2010 total does not include the fourteen candidates who ran for U.S. Senate in 2010; there is no U.S. Senate election in California in 2014, so omitting U.S. Senate from the 2010 total makes the comparison fairer). It thus appears that California’s switch from a semi-closed primary to a top-two primary has caused a 14% drop in the number of candidates who filed to be on the ballot, when the two gubernatorial election years are compared with each other.
At the 2014 primary, there are 2 U.S. House races with only one candidate, 3 State Senate races with only one candidate, 14 Assembly races with only one candidate, and one State Board of Equalization district with only one candidate. In those twenty races, there are opportunities for candidates to file as write-in candidates in the June primary, and to have some chance of placing second and qualifying to be on the November ballot. In races like that with only one write-in candidate, obviously that write-in candidate will come in second and will be on the November ballot. But there are likely to be multiple write-in candidates in most of those races. Thanks to Jim Riley for the link.
On March 22, Rhode Island House Speaker Gordon D. Fox said he is resigning as Speaker. During 2013 he had single-handedly blocked a bill to repeal the straight-ticket device. HB 5072 failed to pass in 2013 even though a majority of the House membership had committed to voting for the bill. Election returns from 2012 showed that Fox would have been defeated in the 2012 general election without the votes he received from voters who used the straight-ticket device.
In the 2014 session of the legislature, bills are pending to abolish the straight-ticket device. They are SB 2091 and HB 7512. They had not made any headway yet this year. The session ends in June 2014. It is not known if these bills will now make some progress. The House is caucusing on Sunday, March 23, to choose a new speaker.
On March 20, three New Jersey Assembymembers introduced ACR 134, which would provide for an elected state Attorney General. The sponsors include Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-Red Bank), Deputy Republican leader in the Assembly. The other sponsors are Democrats.
There is a similar bill pending in the State Senate, SCR 71. New Jersey is one of only seven states in which the voters don’t choose the Attorney General. Currently the New Jersey Governor appoints the Attorney General.
Tennessee is another state in which voters don’t choose the Attorney General. On February 5, 2014, the Tennessee Senate failed to pass SJR 123, which would have provided for an elected Attorney General. The Tennessee Constitution can’t be amended unless the proposed amendment passes in two consecutive sessions of the legislature. The measure needs two-thirds the second time it passes. It had passed in the 2011-2012 session, but did not receive two-thirds in the current session. Currently the Tennessee legislature appoints the Attorney General.
