The Working Families has nominated Rob Groce for U.S. House in the First District, which contains Charleston.  See this story.  Groce is not the nominee of any other party.

The Working Families Party has never before run anyone for federal or state office in South Carolina who was not also the Democratic Party nominee.  In 2006, the Working Families Party had cross-endorsed two Democrats for U.S. House, and two Democrats for state legislature.  In 2008 the Working Families Party, even though ballot-qualified, did not appear on the South Carolina ballot.

This year, in the First District race, the Working Families Party had first nominated Robert Burton for in that race.  But Burton lost the Democratic primary in June 2010 to Ben Frasier.  Therefore, under state law, the WFP nomination of Burton was void.

This is the first time a ballot-qualified party in South Carolina has exercised its right to make a replacement nomination, after the first nomination was voided.  The ability of a party to make a new nomination, after its first nominee was barred, is an important gain for parties in South Carolina.  When the 4th circuit upheld the law that says a party loses a nominee if that nominee later tries and fails to get the nomination of another party, the 4th circuit justified its ruling by pointing out that the original party is not signficantly harmed by the law, because it is always free to find a new nominee.  However, until the 4th circuit said that, the State Election Commission had not allowed replacement nominations.

Rob Groce’s campaign web page is here.  Thanks to Dave Gillespie for the links.

The Pennsylvania Libertarian Party’s candidates for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and U.S. Senator withdrew today, rather than face the risks of a challenge to their statewide petition.  They were told that if they didn’t withdraw, and the challenge showed that they don’t have enough signatures, their costs would be between $92,000 and $106,000.

There will still be some Libertarians on the Pennsylvania ballot for U.S. House, state legislature, and local office, however.

This means that Pennsylvania will be one of five states with no minor party or independent candidates on the statewide ballot.  The others are Alabama, Washington (because of the operation of the top-two system), Kentucky, and New Mexico.  Of course, there are also three states that don’t have any statewide races this year, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia.

The Pennsylvania Libertarian statewide nominees will continue to campaign as write-in candidates.  The Green Party also has a write-in candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.  The Pennsylvania law says that all write-ins must be counted, but that law is ignored in some counties.  A federal lawsuit is pending in the 3rd circuit that challenges both the fee/challenge system and the failure of many counties to canvass write-ins, and the failure of the state to tally the write-ins for statewide candidates who did get some of their write-ins counted.

Independent candidate Glenn Wilson, running for the U.S. House in Michigan’s First District, says he will spend $2,000,000 of his own money on his campaign.  See this story.  The First District is in northern Michigan.  No incumbent is running for re-election.  The district has been fairly safe for the Democratic Party since 1992.