Mark McKinnon, a Republican campaign consultant and television producer, and a co-founder of No Labels, sets forth a possible strategy for No Labels in the presidential election next year. He suggests that No Labels might run a “favorite son” Republican for president in various swing states in 2024. See it here. His article runs in Vanity Fair.
Here is today’s story on Presidential candidate ballot access from Yahoo News that quotes our own Richard Winger.
The statement in this story about Virginia’s petition requirement is not quite correct. The petition requirement for both major party candidates getting on primary ballots and third party and independent candidates for POTUS is 5,000 signatures of registered voters, with at least 200 from each of Virginia’s Congressional Districts (currently 11).
Through 2012, the requirement for both was 10,000 total and 400 from each CD. But, the Virginia GOP suffered a major embarrassment in 2012, when only two presidential candidates (Mitt Romney and Ron Paul) made the primary ballot due to the difficult petitioning requirements.
After that, the petition numbers reduction occurred. The Virginia legislature also made the same reduction for the petitions of third party and independent candidates for President, for which the legislature should be given credit for fairness.
This news story covers the full first day of the trial in Colorado state court on whether former President Donald Trump should be barred from the Republican presidential primary ballot.
The Constitution Party national convention will be April 17-20, in Salt Lake City. The presidential and vice-presidential nominees will be chosen on April 20. Thanks to Thom Holmes for this information.
On October 10, the North Caorlina legislature approved SB 747, an omnibus election bill. Among other changes, it amends the law concerning who can vote in partisan primaries. The old law said independents could vote in primaries if the party consented. The new law removes the procedure for a party to inform the state of its wishes about independent voters. Instead, it is now automatic for independents to choose a primary ballot if they wish, and there is no provision for a party to express its wishes about that.
The new law makes no concrete difference because in recent past elections, all parties with primaries have informed the state that they want independents to be able to vote in their primaries. Here is the text of the new law. See section 163-119.
The bill had been vetoed on August 24, 2023, but the legislature overrode the veto on October 10. The Governor’s veto message complained about other provisions in the bill; the Governor did not express any disapproval for the provision on who can vote in primaries. Thanks to Mike Drucker for this news.
