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.