On September 23, the Washington Post released its own poll of the Virginia gubernatorial race. Here is the Post’s story about the poll, which shows Terry McAuliffe at 47%, Ken Cuccinelli at 39%, Rob Sarvis 10%, and wouldn’t vote or no opinion 3%. The story has a link to the poll questions and more results. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.

It is bizarre that Sarvis is still being excluded from all gubernatorial debates. Over half the states routinely have debates in which at least some minor party and independent candidates for Governor and U.S. Senator are invited into debates.

Kentucky has never before had an independent candidate for U.S. Senate on its ballots, in the 100 years that the state and the nation have been electing U.S. Senators by popular vote. But Ed Marksberry announced on September 22 that he will attempt to run as an independent for U.S. Senate next year. See this story. Marksberry has been active in the Democratic Party and is an environmentalist.

Utah is the only state in which no one can run in a partisan primary unless that candidate receives substantial support at a party endorsement meeting. An initiative is about to be launched in Utah to change that, so that anyone can gain a place on a primary ballot regardless of what happens at party meetings. Here is an op-ed by Bryan Hyde, supporting the present system.

The op-ed doesn’t address one of the strongest criticisms of the existing system, which is that some voters can’t attend a party meeting because they are temporarily away, or because they must work at the times and dates of these meetings, or because they don’t have transportation to the meetings. The same criticisms are sometimes made in Virginia, which permits any party to nominate entirely by convention instead of by primary. This year, the Virginia Republican Party nominated its statewide nominees by convention instead of by primary.