2024 Third Party and Independent Candidate General discussion

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#GreenWave. Are they Tulane supporters?

Tulane university?

Yeah. Their athletics teams' nickname is Green Wave. Just being funny.

lol

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Soooooo, it looks like this was a historic moment in US electoral history, and especially for third parties

GPUS

At least 13 Greens have been elected in local governments across the country., but primarily in Connecticut and Pennsylvania

For more major races promoted by the party, they had mixed results. While candidates like Madelyn Hoffman and Edwin DeJesus had good showings in New Jersey and Ohio, the most major Green Party elected official in the Midwest, Ward 2 councilor Cam Gordon *may* have been defeated by either a Socialist Alternative member or a generic Democrat due to RCV f•••ery.

PSL
Cathy Rojas got a respectable ~3%, basically the floor for the Left in New York City. The more vital aspects of this race was the grand endorsements of the PSL more openly getting and proclaiming, opening a box for future cooperation between the DSA and the Green Party
Constitution Splinters

Sheila Tittle and Sam lost, but they at least exist unlike the main Constitution Party

ASP
Had a great night. With 30% write-in votes for local council in Steubenville and an elected official in Franklin, Massachusetts—the party still grows.

Alliance
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlliancePTY/status/1455850414788780033

SWP
The fact that they woke up is a sight to behold, so far they’ve been getting at least one or two thousand votes per statewide race they’ve participated in.

There’s so much more going on that has yet to be announced

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Think I saw Libertarians had 130 candidates elected nationally yesterday.

For clarity, post the results.

Libertarians are on the incline ever since 2012. I expect them to get a house seat within the next 6 years.

https://mobile.twitter.com/GPUSyouth/status/1456037379362467842

At least 16 Greens have been elected or reelected and there have been several candidates getting respectable county (2-3%) and mayoral (15+%) numbers. Greens are spinning this as a victory as they only lost two incumbents, albeit they were Cam Gordon (possibly) and a member in charge of taxes in Windham, CT in an otherwise good showing in that town
Socratic Gadfly, the most famous (ex)GP blogger, has been purged from the Georgia GP mailing list.

Meanwhile, most dissidents are acting as useful idiots for the People’s Party

https://mobile.twitter.com/ChadWilson2020/status/1454492759713325060

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So the Independent party of New York lost Syracuse to a moderate Democrat. They are, in losing that race, reduced to one State Senator. Worse, their registration numbers see at least 100,000 membership registration loss if Wikipedia and BAN are to be believed. I guess factional conflict and the recruitment of their top stars into the Republican Party took its toll.
Green electoral wins have risen to 17

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Oh, I looked at the incomplete results.

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Green electoral victories have risen by 18 in total, leaving there to be at least 14 net electoral gains for the party since 2021. I feel that if they got at least 20 net electoral wins and held on to their incumbents, this would have been an absolute victory for the party given their poor condition from the disaffiliations and COVID.

I have added the World Socialist Website ran by the SEP in our blogs, along with CNP and AIP of Cali to our list. By 2022 I expect to add the Liberty Union Party (now renamed Green Mountain) and the SWP.

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The number of Green electoral wins this cycle has gone up to 20, leaving their nice infographic they posted on Twitter to be incorrect.

https://mobile.twitter.com/GreenPartyUS/status/1457413137959989256
The LMN chair lost in the Brush, CO mayoral election by 16%. Meanwhile the Reform Party candidates all lost, although one did get 33% for city council.

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BAN:

On November 2, Minneapolis elected two members to the Board of Estimate and Taxation. The races were citywide. Samantha Pree-Stinson, a member of the Socialist Party, won one of the seats.

The Board has six members, but only two are elected directly. The other members are the Mayor, the President of the City Council, a member of the Park and Recreation Board, and a city council member. The latter two members are chosen by their respective boards. The Board of Estimate and Taxation sets maximum tax rates for most city funds, and helps manage the city’s debt.

There were four candidates. Ranked choice voting was used, but the results would have been the same without RCV. Thanks to Independent Political Report for this news. Here is a page from the Socialist Party’s website, with a statement by Pree-Stinson.

She was running on the ballot as a Green. Of course given that there are now Green Party people on the board of SPUSA and Socialists in the Green Party council, this is unsurprising. The formula for the Green Party in basically acting as a platform for different social democrats and socialists to run under has been a working relationship for all involved.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/AmSolidarity/status/1459333423680655361

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Thanks to Canis, we have a map detailing the results in New York and New Jersey

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The Green Dissidents continue to turn on one another


https://mobile.twitter.com/ReformParty/status/1460221198550319104
Life & Liberty, largest Constitution splinter, hosting virtual convention December 12th

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I have a feeling that either the Howie Hawkins wins the P&F nomination or it becomes far more competitive. I found it suspicious that the PSL didn’t try to get on the ballot for Arkansas I believe when the petition restrictions were introduced, as usually while they do operate on a shoe-string budget outside California, they do try to get on the ballot everywhere they could in the 2020 cycle.

I’m basing this off zero evidence but a single state’s ballot access window, but I just feel it for some reason.

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New BAN edition.

Outside of the news on the failure of the Green petition drive, Richard Winger rightfully chews Yang’s joke of a book

But then Forward falters. He asserts that the solution to the nation’s unhappy political life is to pass ballot initiatives that combine top-four or top-five systems with ranked choice voting. He asserts dogmatically and repeatedly that voters who vote in partisan primaries are the extremists in the U.S., and non-primary voters are sensible moderates. Political science research overwhelmingly rebuts this idea. Here is a list of political science papers, and book chapters, that say he is wrong:
Has the Top-Two Primary Elected More Moderates? Eric McGhee & Boris Shor, in Perspectives on Politics, Dec. 2017, Vol. 15(4).
Why Closed Primaries Do Not Contribute to Polarization. Barbara Norrander & Jay Wendland, presented to the American Political Science Association meeting, September 2015.
Do Moderate Voters Weigh Candidates’ Ideologies? Boris Shor, Political Behavior 39(1).
Partisan Polarization in the U.S.: Diagnoses and Avenues for Reform. Nolan McCarty & Boris Shor, SSRN 2714013. They recommend stronger political parties.
Solutions to Political Polarization in America (book with chapters by 22 authors, published 2015). Only one of the authors writes that top-two primaries reduce polarization. Another author recommends an end to government-administered primaries. Lead author Nathaniel Persily.
California Still the Most Polarized Legislature, in the blog "Measuring American Legislatures", Nov. 8, 2016, by Boris Shor & Nolan McCarty.
American Gridlock: the Sources, Character, and Impact of Political Polarization (2015 book, lead authors Antoine Yoshinaka & James A. Thurber)
Chuck Schumer is Wrong About the Top-Two Primary, at blog 538.com, July 22, 2014, by Harry Enten.
The Limits of Electoral Reform, book by Todd Donovan and Shaun Bowler.
Democracy in the States: Experiments in Electoral Reform (2008 book by Bruce Cain, Todd Donovan, and C. Tolbert.
The Top-Two Primary: What Can California Learn from Washington? California Journal of Public Policy 4(1) by Todd Donovan.
Yang cites no authority for his belief that voters in partisan primaries are extremists, except he says that Katherine Gehl believes this. But Gehl, who is a wealthy businesswoman in Wisconsin who is promoting top-five primaries, is not a political scientist, nor does she have practical experience in elections.
Yang doesn’t mention the point that there are approximately 150 reasonably democratic countries in the world, and none of them other than the U.S. uses a "top-anything" system.
In the world outside the U.S., it is unheard of to print ballots with party labels, and yet deprive parties of the ability to nominate candidates.
Yang doesn’t explain the purpose of the primary. Because he is advocating ranked choice voting, and an end to party nominees, there seems to be no reason whatsoever to even have a primary. And Louisiana has abolished primaries (except for presidential primaries). Louisiana merely holds general elections. In one-fifth of its elections, no one gets 50% and then there is a run-off. The book does not mention the Louisiana system.
Yang also doesn’t explain why he doesn’t support other election reforms. His book does not mention proportional representation, even though the vast majority of the best-governed nations in the world (as measured by objective criteria) use proportional representation. There is a bill pending in the U.S. House for proportional representation, HR 3863, by Congressman Donald Beyer (D-Virginia). Although it only has six co-sponsors, at least it exists; by contrast there is no bill in Congress for a top-five primary.
Yang doesn’t mention the National Popular Vote Plan movement, which is making headway. An initiative is circulating in Michigan to have that state join the Plan.
A top-five system would probably result in a Democratic-Republican monopoly on the ballot for U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races. The top-two system in California and Washington provides data to support this prediction. During the 13 years top-two has been in effect in Washington, and the 10 years it has been in effect in California, there is not a single minor party candidate for Governor or Senator who ever polled in the top five in the primary.
The best any third party candidate for those two offices has done in either state is sixth.
See the May 1, 2021 print issue of Ballot Access News for a list of all the minor party candidates for those two offices during the top-two period.
The reason minor party candidates for those two offices do so poorly in top-two primaries is that all the public attention is focused on which major party figures will qualify. The press doesn’t cover minor party candidates in top-two primaries.
Plans for the Forward Party
The book contains almost no practical information for people who want to support Yang’s proposed Forward Party. It doesn’t mention ballot access problems, nor problems for minor parties being included in candidate debates. Yang outlines the six main planks for the Forward Party: (1) ranked choice voting and open primaries; (2) fact-based governance; (3) human-centered capitalism; (4) effective and modern government; (5) universal basic income; (6) grace and tolerance. But he says nothing about what the party’s strategy would be, except that it would use the initiative process in states that have it to pass ranked choice voting combined with top-five primaries.
Shortly after the book was published, it was announced that a group of very wealthy individuals are banding together to raise $100,000,000 to promote state initiatives to implement top-five primaries and ranked choice voting. Probably Yang’s real purpose in writing his book is to help that movement.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SPofUSA/status/1455943475829133322
Winning two races, one as an official for taxes in a major city as an avowed socialist, and having a meh result in New Jersey makes the pattern clear. Like several other socialist parties, SPUSA has woken up and is making a comeback
Nick Brana has been elected as the PP’s interim chair
ASP has a new executive director
Brock Pierce might run for US senate in Vermont
I’m surprised why his child pornography allegations are taking so long to come to light again.
The Freedom Socialist Party has endorsed a “No” vote on the recall of Kshama Sawant, sensing the urgency of the situation
Let’s take a moment and reflect on the fact that the New Alliance Party, a nominally Marxist Leninist outfit often called a cult, joined forces with the billionaire-led Reform Party as their “Left Wing” and then aided the election of Michael Bloomberg to keep their jobs in turning working class teens into effective cogs in the machine. The NAP/IWP is perhaps the only self-proclaimed socialist outfit to fuse themselves into the capitalist superstructure in recent US history. Not even the DSA has done the crazy s••• they did, and they likely never will be in that position of power to sell out that much.

Stateboiler, you were a member of the Reform Party before it broke apart, what was their deal?

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So I have several semi-accurate templates of the US Marxist-Leninist left

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Any sense out there on how the Sawant recall will go, for or against?

A successful recall in a way could be a pyrrhic defeat for her. She can say the centrist Democrats ganged up with Republicans to oust her.

It will possibly pass, the reality is that SAlt is flat broke from the pandemic raising fixed costs, and can’t compete with the millions pouring in from anti-Sawant superPACs. If held on Nov 2nd, she would get enough turnout to win, but not now. They’ve also had drainage of revenue from splits in England, given that an insignificant amount of the upper brass are British immigrants who are interconnected with the founding party area and SAlt in 2019 organized a donation campaign to keep the ISA afloat. there is a shining light; what is going for them is the fact that outside the very close mayoral race in her district, the more rhetorically radical NTK won in district 3 by a good margin.

Taking the confusing and unverified result in Minnesota as a nonfactor, SAlt will be in the worst shape it has ever been since being purged from the Labor Party. Their internationale, the ISA, is in shambles and have gone through eight splits since 2015, four of them in the past three years. They are clearly going to fall apart if they don’t have some victory to relish in. Outside of Russia, every derivative of the original internationale, the Committee for Workers International, have been in a state of terminal decline. SAlt’s presence in Seattle was the one shining thing they could keep telling themselves that their work was worth it.

If SAlt wins, it will be due to their impeccable grassroots machine forging close connections with major immigrant communities, trade unions, and other likeminded political organizations. If SAlt loses; it will be a damning statement against entryism, Trotskyite organizational model of (international) movements and parties, and SAlt and its allies inaction in not setting up party services in providing for the Seattle poor in the form of direct necessities and amenities. SAlt has more than a thousand members. I expect that if they do collapse that most will either tune out of politics while the rest are apart of splinters, other entryists in the DSA, and with a small fraction joining the Green Party directly. Winning would make the grand coalition the winner all things respected in Seattle. Losing would be a major blow, but not an unexpected or fatal one to the workers movement. The fact that a socialist is in charge of taxes in Minneapolis is a cause for celebration.

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So apparently SPUSA got two candidates elected in Minneapolis, for Tax Board and Education for position 4. Sewer Socialism is back!
https://mobile.twitter.com/brockpierce/status/1466164144323764224
https://mobile.twitter.com/PeoplesParty_US/status/1467748116803862528

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Green Party Petition for recognition in Yavapai, AZ fails

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https://mobile.twitter.com/PSLAtlanta/status/1473047702925717506

No wonder federal assets attacked this chapter. I wonder if they also distribute any of their new swag
The GP Texas candidate

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Maine SOS being very petty about ballot access for the Green party

GPTX are attempting to have candidates for governor, railroad commissioner, and land commissioner for 2022

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Peoples Party now has ballot access in the swing state of Virginia

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Running in district 51, Jose Cortez has the endorsement of P&F, PSL, Greens

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After Unity, SAM, Alliance, and Forward—another vanity “moderate” party appears on the scene led by a has-been. They should qualify for the ballot in California very shortly.
Green party runs a very good, locally tailored candidate for NC Senate

Well, at least this isn’t like the travesty they think will get them votes like in the Texas gubernatorial election.

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So apparently even Jill stein backed the anti-Hawkins alliance, and yet it still failed. Devastating.
I’m interested in what happens in Reno now that there’s another controversy among those wanting a progressive-Libertarian alliance, whose candidate is running for Idaho statewide office. The PLAS people are perhaps the most isolated yet persistent group of people in the Libertarian party who both despise government intervention and have strong socially conservative wings.

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It’s been forever now

According to BAN, Hawkins will run as the Green Party nominee for NY Gov while Larry Sharpe will have the endorsement of the Libertarian, Forward, and Upstate Jobs ballot access line. The Libertarians might get more votes here over the Green Party and subsequently all third party candidates since 1994. Hawkins however will throw a pretty valiant campaign, as is tradition, and will most likely get a few DSA endorsements from select personalities and definitely the backing of the PSL along with basically everyone else relevant on the New York left scene.

Edit: oh yeah, the peoples party is collapsing. Everyone is either breaking away (Washington, effectively the WV PP), breaking apart (Virginia), or jumping ship (Marianne has been signaling this for a while) as Nick Brana is hit with a sexual assault allegation. Can I just say, lmao, what a damn waste of time for everyone involved.

Another edit: a pro-Freedom Convoy group is splitting from SPUSA and positioning itself as to the left of it. I’m skeptical to say the least.

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Massive victory in maintaining ballot access in California

In 2022, Peace & Freedom polled 3.1% for Treasurer, 2.3% for Insurance Commissioner, and 2.1% for Lieutenant Governor. But in 2018, it only had one candidate who polled over 2% for a statewide office: Treasurer 2.3%.

In 2022, the Green Party polled 3.5% for Controller, 2.7% for Attorney General, and 2.5% for Secretary of State. But in 2018, it only had one candidate who polled over 2% for a statewide office: Secretary of State 2.1%.

A grand revival, great to see these recent string of victories like the Green Party getting ballot access in North Carolina. Also glad to see that the left is .5% away from being the largest third party presence in California
IPR and BAN, led by people who lost power in the recent LNC convention, have begun massive crackdowns on most of the pro-Mises posters. Sad, the slap fights led to great political knowledge seeping over from the chaff.

George Phillies has also ruined the user interface and style of IPR, cutting ties with most of the contributors. Sad, the wringing about the LNC and modern Green Party was pretty funny all things considered and was great insight into the minds of small business owners and upper middle income workers. Now I have to go to zeroHedge.