In November 2008, 33 states hold regularly-scheduled U.S. Senate elections. There will be at least one minor party or independent candidate for U.S. Senate on the ballot in at least 22 states.

States in which there definitely will be no minor party or independent candidates for U.S. Senate on the ballot are Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming. There are ballot-qualified minor parties in all those states except Alabama, but those parties all chose not to run anyone for U.S. Senate. In New Mexico, though, even a ballot-qualified minor party would have needed a substantial petition.

It is uncertain if there will be a minor party or independent candidate for U.S. Senate this year in Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, and Rhode Island. In Montana, the only possibility is for independent candidate Steve Kelly to win his pending ballot access lawsuit.

Last time this set of Senate seats was up was in 2002. In 2002, there was at least one minor party or independent candidate on the ballot for U.S. Senate in all states except Arkansas, Kentucky, Maine, New Mexico, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The South Carolina primary (for office other than president) was held on June 10. In the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, the results are: Bob Conley 73,773; Michael Cone 72,790. All of the votes have been counted except some absentee and provisional ballots.

In May, Cone had been nominated by the Working Families Party as its US Senate candidate. The WFP had been hoping that Cone would also get the Democratic nomination. Now Cone will need to decide whether to remain on the general election race as the WFP nominee, even though he didn’t get the Democratic nomination.

On June 10, the New York State Court of Appeals issued two opinions, both boosting the power of state party organizations to centralize power in those state organizations. One case concerned the Working Families Party; the other concerned the Independence Party. The Working Families decision is 8 pages long and can be seen here

The Independence Party decision is only 3 pages and mostly defers to the Working Families Party decision for an explanation. In the case of the Working Families Party, the case was a fight between the state organization and the Suffolk County organization, over which body should have the power to decide whether to let outsiders run in the party’s primary. The Independence Party lawsuit is similar, and was between the state organization and the New York city branches. The Independence Party decision does concede that the New York city branches do have statutory authority to decide whether to let outsiders run in the party’s primary for the 3 citywide offices (Mayor, Public Advocate and Comptroller). But for all other city offices, such as city council, the state organization may keep the decision-making power in its own hands. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.