On May 24, the Libertarian Party national convention, meeting in Grand Rapids, Michigan, elected Evan McMahon as the new national party chair. He has been the state chair of the Indiana Libertarian Party.
68
The Maine Green Party and the Maine Libertarian Party are both qualified, and each is entitled to its own primary. Filing for the June 2026 primaries has now closed. Only one Green Party member filed to run in the Green Party primary for any federal or state office, John Baldwin for state rep, 87th district. No Libertarian Party member filed to run in the Libertarian primary for any federal or state office.
Maine makes it very difficult for members of small qualified parties to get onto their own party’s primary ballot. The number of signatures for primary ballot access is just as high for qualified minor parties as it is for the two major parties.
The Alaska legislature adjourned its regular session on May 20. The bill to restore write-in space for president on general election ballots, HB 4, did not make any progress and is therefore dead.
The North Carolina Forward Party has been petitioning for party status. It is half-way and has decided to apply its existing signatures to a future election year, because it won’t be finished in time to qualify for the 2026 election. The Constitution Party of North Carolina had already made a similar decision. Therefore, the only parties that will be on in North Carolina in 2026 are Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Green.
The Kentucky Libertarian Party will try to place a nominee for U.S. House, 4th district, on the November ballot. The nominee, Jeremy Todd, needs 400 valid signatures by June 2. The 4th district is the district that Thomas Massie represents, but Massie lost the Republican primary earlier this month.
The Kentucky petition deadline for Congress, for minor party and independent candidates, had been the second Tuesday in August, until the 2018 session of the legislature moved the deadline to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in June.
No minor party nominee for U.S. House has been on the ballot in Kentucky since 2022, when the Pirate Party placed Ethan Keith Osborne on the ballot. He also ran in the 4th district, and polled 10,111 votes. Even though he was the Pirate Party nominee, he chose the ballot label “independent.” No Libertarian has been on the ballot for U.S. House in Kentucky since 2020.