On October 31, the Rockford Register Star endorsed Richard Whitney for Illinois Governor. It said “A new party has the best chance to bring honest government to Illinois”, and also agreed with Whitney’s stance on school finance, job creation and the environment. Rockford is the home town of former Congressman John B. Anderson, who polled 7% for president in the U.S. in 1980, and polled 21.5% in Winnebago County (the county that contains Rockford).
Ben Meiklejohn, Green nominee for the Maine State House in the 120th district, is considered somewhat likely to win his race. A few weeks ago, the Republican in the race dropped out and endorsed Meiklejohn. Meiklejohn is an elected office-holder already; he is a member of the Portland School Committee. The Republican candidate’s name appeared on the ballot for early voting, but voters were given a piece of paper telling them that he had dropped out and that votes for him would be considered blank. The election-day ballots will list only Meiklejohn and his Democratic opponent.
Maine Greens already hold one legislative seat, that of John Eder, who is running for re-election in the 118th district.
An Illinois gubernatorial poll released October 31 shows these results: Democratic Rod Blagojevich 44%, Republican Judy Baar Topinka 29%, Green Richard Whitney 13%, undecided 14%. The poll was for the Chicago Tribune and WGN-Channel 9.
As noted before, if the Green Party polls 5% or more for Governor, it will be a ballot-qualified party for all partisan office in the state for both 2008 and 2010. This will be the first time a nationally-organized party (other than the Democrats and Republicans) will have held that status in Illinois since the 1910’s decade. The Illinois Solidary Party held that status in Illinois 1986-1990, but it was just a party in Illinois.
Political Science Professor Michael McDonald, who studies voter turnout in the U.S., estimates 39% of the potential electorate will vote in the November 7, 2006 election. That is only about a 10% improvement, compared to November 2002, when about 36% voted. Note that “potential electorate” means all adults who could register and vote if they wished; it does not refer to the percentage of registered voters who will vote.
He notes in the Washington Post of October 31 that Iowa keeps track of the partisan affiliation of people who request absentee ballots. So far, 51.1% of the absentee voter requests in Iowa have come from registered Democrats, whereas 31.7% of them have come from registered Republicans and only 17.2% have come from registered independents. Voter registration in Iowa is almost a 3-way tie between Republicans, Democrats and independents. Therefore, this data tends to show that registered Democrats are more eager to vote this year than registered Republicans and registered independents.
Max Linn, who was kept out of last week’s Florida gubernatorial debate by a State Court of Appeals, won a federal court order today at approximately 5 p.m. He then participated in tonight’s debate, which was sponsored by MSNBC.
Linn’s new lawsuit had first been filed in state court in Hillsborough County (Tampa), but attorneys for the debate sponsor demanded that the case be moved to federal court. The federal court hearing was at 4:30 pm, and Judge James Wittemore, a Clinton appointee in Tampa, issued a ruling in Linn’s favor shortly afterwards. Chris Matthews was the moderator.
