This year the South Carolina Democratic Party has a nominee for all 124 state legislative seats that are up this year, the first time since 1990 that the South Carolina Democratic Party has done that.
The South Carolina Senate is not up in midterm years. Only the 124 State House seats are up.
This year, Rhode Island elects all 38 State Senators and all 75 State Representatives. Out of those 113 legislative races, the Republican Party only has nominees in 29.
There are no minor party nominees for Rhode Island legislature this year. There weren’t any in 2024 either.
On August 26, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled that Chris Gambino should remain on the ballot as the Forward Party’s nominee for State Representative, 143rd district. See this story. Democrats had challenged his ballot position on the grounds that his ballot label, “Forward Independent”, is illegal. The Democratic challengers said that Gambino could not use that label because other candidates in other districts were on the ballot as “independent”, and therefore “independent” was reserved for those candidates.
The challengers have appealed to the State Supreme Court. See this story. Apparently the appeal is on whether Gambino had enough valid signatures.
This is believed to be the first instance at which Democrats have challenged the ballot access of any Forward Party nominee, anywhere in the nation. One wonders why Democrats feel that a Forward Party nominee on the ballot necessarily hurts the Democratic nominee.
On September 11, the New Mexico Secretary of State filed this brief in New Mexico Forward Party v Toulouse Oliver, 26-2145. This is the ballot access case in which the Forward Party challenges the law that requires one petition to qualify a new party, and then (after the new party nominates candidates by convention), each nominated candidate must submit his or her own petition.
The Secretary’s brief, in an attempt to show that New Mexico has reasonable ballot access laws for minor parties, points out that in the last ten years, candidates from the American Delta Party, the Constitution Party, and the Better for America Party have appeared on the ballot. But the brief does not say that these parties only appeared on the ballot for president. The law requiring nominee petitions does not apply to presidential candidates. so the fact that those three parties appeared does not relate to the nominee petition issue at all.
Toward the end of the brief, it mentions that the Attorney General yesterday filed an amicus brief on the side of the Forward Party. The Secretary’s brief asserts that the Attorney General’s brief merely duplicates the Forward Party’s brief, but that is not true. The Attorney General’s amicus brief points out that the nominee petitions aren’t required for presidential nominees, a very important point that is not in the Tenth Circuit Forward Party brief.
U.S. District Court Judge Franklin Valderrama, a Trump appointee, will hear Sigcho-Lopez v Illinois State Board of Elections, n.d., 1:26cv-9156, on Wednesday, September 16, at 9:30 a.m. This is one of the cases that challenges the Illinois 5% petition for U.S. House independent candidates. The case had been filed on July 31 by Byron Sigcho-Lopez, an independent candidate for U.S. House in the 4th district in Chicago. Sigcho-Lopez is a Chicago city councilmember.
