2024 Third Party and Independent Candidate General discussion

[Open Source Intelligence]

Libertarians are in talks with RFK Jr? LMAO. He's whatever the opposite of a libertarian is. Even Bill Weld was far truer to libertarianism.

The billionaire backing the Mises Caucus is a major MAGA guy who wants to destroy the party to ensure that Republicans can eliminate the competition. I would not be surprised by a safe-state move that will further plummet the party.

The Libertarian National Convention is a delegate convention. You can't just parade in and have your supporters practice entryism in primaries to win the nomination. (You have to become national and state party members, be delegates to your state convention from your county that become nominated to be national convention delegates.)

The Mises Caucus were by what I've seen written demoralized by Dave Smith choosing to not run for the nomination. If you want some humor check out National Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos's reaction to it. In the leaks that came out about a month ago of Chair Angela McArdle in a much smaller circle of people talking frankly about things on a Discord account because she never expected it to go public, she mentioned "Dave Smith for President" was the only thing that got the Mises Caucus people going as far as their interaction to do stuff in the national party apparatus. Smith chose not to run, and NYU Prof. Michael Rectenwald is the Mises Caucus Chair Michael Heise's pick to replace him as their candidate. Rectenwald completely lacks charisma and records put up by the Fakertarians Twitter feed showed he had donated something like 59 times the past few years to Donald Trump and as recently as the spring had been stating publicly on his Twitter he supports and will vote for Trump (now deleted, but the Fakertarians Twitter has a screenshot). Why Heise picked Rectenwald is only known to Heise as it was not a caucus vote/nomination, it was just a pick of Heise. And in public channels some caucus members have been "why the eff did you pick this guy?" The Rectenwald selection reminds me of when in the aftermath of Donald Trump in 2016 it was known he would be the nominee some dissident conservatives put up David French as their guy briefly.

That RFK Jr. is entertaining running as a Libertarian I think is more one of strategy of "this is the group that has the most ballot access that saves me from having to do that work" versus genuinely believing in the party. So this is Bob Barr, Cynthia McKinney, Bill Weld, Mike Gravel, Virgil Goode stuff of Republicans/Democrats that couldn't get anywhere there taking a minor party nomination, but once the election is over they're going to move on and leave the party, having served them their purpose. It's why I give big marks to Gary Johnson.

Main candidates at this time in my opinion:

-Rectenwald, so far top choice of the Mises Caucus
-Chase Oliver, so far top choice of the Pragmatists
-Josh Smith, was elected Vice Chair at Reno, resigned early this year, annoyed the Mises Caucus about that, the Pragmatists hate him, I don't expect him to win but probably the choice of the Radicals that are not Mises Caucus members
-Jacob Hornberger, runner-up for the nomination in 2000 and 2020, was the choice of the Mises Caucus in 2020 but they're not backing him this time, also don't expect him to win for that reason, he made some party members mad in 2020 for his treatment of Justin Amash's brief late entry into the race which probably was a reason why Jorgensen got the nomination and not him

The Mises Caucus after the last 15 months in control have permanently lost control in New Hampshire in a Mises/Radical split there involving the Free State Project. There's lawsuits going on with multiple state affiliates all while membership and finances are going down with some members not renewing/giving funds to the national party with Mises in control. I see shenanigans likely occurring as it relates to credentials and the size of delegations at the National Convention in D.C. because your delegation's size is based on vote in the last presidential election - which is public record and cannot be disputed - and the number of national party members your state has.

I don't see it as automatic Rectenwald will get coronated in D.C. The current state of the party what it is it's not what Mises Caucus members that went to Reno were told things would be, so how many of them are planning on spending thousands of dollars to attend the National Convention? The Mises Caucus members that do go though, even if Rectenwald they reject as their guy, they still hate the Pragmatists (that's the old regime they kicked out of power), so maybe as some kind of compromise Jacob Hornberger does wind up winning. For RFK Jr. to have an opening to win the nomination, you're either significantly weaking an existing caucus or having one of them go completely over to RFK Jr. I don't see that being the Pragmatists, and I don't see the Radicals agreeing with RFK Jr. on his views of business, so that leaves the Mises Caucus.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Always funny when Democrats complain about someone "taking away their vote" like they are entitled to people's votes.

Welcome to American politics. Neither the Democrats nor Republicans really believe in democracy. They believe in "the ends justify the means". Both parties in state governments they control seek to block parties and candidates to ensure the party they hate is the only alternative on the ballot in methods no different than what is used by Vladimir Putin's party in Russia. There are people employed by Joe Biden's campaign now seeking ways to ensure no one is on the ballot except Biden and probably Trump in several states, and CBS News got a hold of an email sent out to Utah Democratic Party county chairs by the party's Executive Director Thom DeSirant a couple weeks ago of "we must kill this effort now, don't even let [No Labels] get to the point of nominating candidates".

Third party and independent activists' best route is "Know the Rules": follow them, be organized, and when they attempt to screw you shove the rules right back in their faces. In states like Georgia and New York State for example that are openly Russian in democratic character and conduct, I think it might be best to just have a "Coalition Party" of all these disparate voices for the sake of securing ballot access. Easier said than done of course with many different voices and agendas. It'd require parties to sacrifice immediacy for the greater cause.

[Open Source Intelligence]

I'd like to see the evidence that the only reason RFK Jr. is running is to "ruin Biden."

First off, no one owes Biden anything. Democrats don't owe Biden their votes, nor should Biden just blindly expect all Democrats to vote for or support him. Many will, but some are turned off for various reasons, and that's on Biden, not those who are witholding their votes.

In the sense that no politician ever is owed anything, voters don't owe a politician their votes, and no politician should just blindly expect all voters to support him or her, this is true, yes. None of this is remotely specific to Biden though, it applies to literally every politician in history.

Biden isn't going to win the primary b/c he thinks he's "owed" anything, he's going to win the democratic primary b/c he has earned it through his competent, successful administration.

That and for just considering running against Biden Dean Phillips has been ostracized, resigned his position in House Democratic leadership, and a Democratic National Committee member has announced for the Congressional primary to run against him. Phillips for just asking the question his political career is probably done.

And look, the Republicans are no better, and Trump sycophants did the exact same thing in the run-up to 2020 to make sure there was zero path for Mark Sanford who was a more realistic Trump alternative than Bill Weld ever was. But it comments on your naivete that you think there's not all these levers and people behind the scenes strong-arming so that there is only one option you're allowed to pick from. And if primary voters ever put up a result we don't like, we'll invoke some arcane rule in our bylaws so they're not allowed to have delegates at the National Convention and therefore any power. I'd bet anyone any amount of money they would've done that to RFK Jr. if he won say 10% of the delegates to the National Convention, this current Democratic Party leadership group are never going to allow Bernie Sanders 2016 complete outsider campaign to ever happen again (it's a lot of the reason why they pushed South Carolina first, diversity is the public reason, the private reason is Bernie-type politicians are dead on arrival in South Carolina), and I think they only allowed him in at the time to have Hillary defeat someone in the primary that they thought would've been a complete pushover (Sanders as the Bill Bradley to Hillary's Al Gore), but completely underestimated their own voters' desire for change from the Obama adminstration, and also underestimated Hillary's broader unpopularity inside the party.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Libertarians' Arkansas ballot access drive finished and submitted to the state.

The Alliance Party have setup an affiliate in Mississippi.

Not presidential, but the Philadelphia Democratic Party have started evicting its members include some ward chairs that openly endorsed Working Families Party candidates to At-Large City Council seats. I think the idiosyncrasy is there are 7 at-large seats but parties are only allowed to put up 5 nominees.

https://billypenn.com/2023/10/23/philadelphia-democrats-endorse-working-families-party-candidates/

[Open Source Intelligence]

So RFK Jr. is somehow, impossibly, polling decently for a third party candidate-most aggregates have him in the mid 10's, and Quinnipiac alongside another poll has him at 22% (19% with Cornel for some reason). He's also apparently getting a lot of money and is rich as well.

Also, he's taking more from Trump than Biden. Guess those people who told me it wouldn't be even were right.

The great unanswered question for Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West is ballot access and how are they going about getting it. You can be at 22% in a poll but if you're not on a ballot people aren't going to vote for you.

It was mentioned elsewhere that the Commission of Presidential Debates has compared to past cycles been incredibly silent not doing or saying anything on their website. The RNC did withdraw from CPD debates so there's that (an incredible own goal in my opinion considering you're going to have Biden on his own for at least an hour in 3 separate instances, so either Republicans cave in on the point or Biden is spared long periods of time talking), but also their previous arbitrary standard for excluding every 3rd party candidate in the past was 15% support. RFK Jr. is in these admittedly very very early polls above that number.

I suspect the CPD if we do get a debate will change their rules to ensure only 2 people are on stage, either by their own doing or through external pressure to Board members. It's never been this nonpartisan high standard everyone deludes themselves into thinking it is.

[Open Source Intelligence]

With Jill Stein on the Green Party line, she could get ballot access in almost all 50 states and take a solid 1-2% from Biden.

Greens have never had 51-state ballot access, not even in 2000, and Stein in 2016 when everyone hated Hillary and Trump just cleared 1%. I don't see her getting similar numbers if Robert Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West as well as a potential No Labels ticket have large-scale ballot access. Howie Hawkins in 2020 got above 0.25% but with restricted ballot access compared to Stein's 2016 run because we don't live in this great free democracy that people lie to you about. Without looking it up, I think Hawkins had ballot access in the mid-30s number of states.

[Open Source Intelligence]

This article says RFK is actually winning among voters under 30:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4304919-biden-loses-ground-with-young-voters-prompting-dem-concerns

Wow, now there's a shock, young people are done with Presidents born in the 1940s. That generation has run the country for 23 of the last 31 years.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1722664968288383305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7...
Jill Stein has called for a crimes investigation against Netanyahu and Bidens complicity as well as an actual ceasefire.

This is certainly going to peel off some youth/arab/progressive votes from Biden. Honestly, with all the recognizable third party candidates running next year (RFK, Stein, West, possibly a No labels candidate) running next year, and the near guarantee of a rematch between two unpopular candidates, I have a hard time seeing how the third party share won't be important next year. Highest third party share since at least 1996 is pretty much a lock I think.

2016 without a major third candidate on the Perot/Anderson level had 6+%. Libertarians more than tripled their previous best election. Greens had their best election since 2000. Constitution Party had their best election ever. McMillan got a half million votes with very limited ballot access and crossed 20% in Utah. There were then an insane number of write-in votes, most of which went uncounted in final stats.

Kennedy and a potential No Labels run combined with 2024 will probably have an even more disgruntled voter base than 2016 and would both more likely qualify as a major third candidate than Gary Johnson was, provided both major parties don't take criminal actions behind the scenes with ballot access, I can easily see the 6% mark crossed. You can even see 1996 surpassed which was largely just the leftovers of the Perot base with minor contributions from Nader and Harry Browne.

This was the election the Maine IRV was designed for presidentially and it's going to get its first real workout, probably to some people's chagrin responsible for putting it into law if it gives them a result they don't like.

[Open Source Intelligence]

This article says RFK is actually winning among voters under 30:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4304919-biden-loses-ground-with-young-voters-prompting-dem-concerns

Wow, now there's a shock, young people are done with Presidents born in the 1940s. That generation has run the country for 23 of the last 31 years.

You know RFK Jr was born in 1954, right? He's not a 1940s birth but he'll be 70 on election day so he's not exactly a spring chicken and is considerably older than, say, Mike Pence.

Take it up with the poll respondents. Call up the pollster and see if they'll give the names and phone numbers to you.

[Open Source Intelligence]

60,000 prospective voters for No Labels based off registration. Already they are surpassing the efforts of the Alliance which got 5th place last election at this point in the cycle, if they clinch all these votes.

Per the most recent Ballot Access News they have ballot access now in 12 states matching the Constitution Party and have finished their petitioning for Alabama, Kansas, Ohio, and South Carolina.

The brutal ballot access states I see out there, with most of these being your highest number of voters states:

California - 75k registration for party or 219k for an independent
Illinois - 25k
Indiana - 37k
Michigan - 30k
New York - 45k
Oregon - 24k
Texas - 81k registration for party or 113k for an independent

I see them making almost all of those. New York State Government will do some pseudo-criminal actions to try to prevent them from making it on the ballot but that's New York. Illinois would try the same but No Labels can easily overwhelm that signatures number. Michigan and Oregon they'll make. That number for Indiana is hard. Texas and California I don't really know.

Some of these states they could take the ballot access of an entity on the ballot. Michigan for example has the Natural Law Party where you can pay the attorney that runs the party and get their ballot access. Not sure No Labels would want the association with these entities however.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at 2 states (Oregon, South Carolina).

Speculation that Mark Cuban may be doing something political. He's ending his participation on Shark Tank and rumored to be looking to sell the Dallas Mavericks.

[Open Source Intelligence]

I can definitely attest that Indiana belongs on that list, as our ballot access is absolutely awful. Luckily, the people I voted for in 2016 and 2020 were certified write-ins, but it would be great to vote for someone actually on the ballot while living here.

2% of the vote in the most recent Secretary of State race. Otherwise you get that level of signatures.

The Green Party lawsuit that the Libertarians were co-sponsors of lost. Its appeal is being worked out.

The bright thing if the standard holds is the next SoS race is 2026 where the next highest-profile thing on the ballot is Congressional Representative with no President, Governor, or U.S. Senator up, so it should be a lower-turnout election meaning the barrier is much lower.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Under a screenshot of an item shared on Twitter titled "Anticipated Q&A", it appears the news is getting dropped at the weekend Libertarian National Committee meeting on the budget that they will only have ballot access in 47 states due to getting ballot access in the remaining 3 states is projected to cost $600k. They're appearing to blame the Jorgensen ticket got less votes than the Johnson ticket for why, but in December 2018 the Libertarian Party were on 32 state ballots and in December 2022 they were on 34 states.

Looking at the November edition of Ballot Access News for state of petitioning, my guesses are the 3 are Alabama, Illinois, and New York. Alabama they took a mighty swing in 2022 to become a qualified party and it almost worked but they weren't able to get the 20s-level percentage number required in any state race, even where only one major party candidate was running.

The same screenshot says the outreach/activism budget is decreasing $492k versus 2020, saying they project to spend $274k less in candidate/campaign support and $181k less on branding, prioritizing ballot access and spending fundraising expense.

So good job to the Republican interlopers that infiltrated the party to neuter it. If you have money and want to help, focus on state-level stuff. I wonder if Michael Heise even wants the Mises Caucus to own the presidential candidate this time. Rectenwald was already a punt compared to Dave Smith, but if his guy wins the nomination, he owns the results. If Mises people say Jorgensen's results were an embarassment, what is Rectenwald getting a third of her vote total? It might be worth it to him to just have Hornberger win. It's a guy you agree with mostly but he's not a Mises guy unlike Rectenwald that has no identity outside the Mises Caucus.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Per insiders, the Mises Caucus is going for Rectenwald

Been known ever since Dave Smith said he wasn't running. Question is how many of their people that will be delegates are blindly supporting the caucus here as Rectenwald is not the most charismatic guy and was a non-entity to these people before his presidential campaign.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Apparently the list for California is final according to a comment by Richard Winger. That means that RFK Jr and the Libertarian party nominee will not be on the ballot in 2024. This seriously damages the prospects of either candidate and is most likely going to get a lawsuit filed against such a case.

Libertarians ignore all the primaries because they don't limit voters to party members. The guy on the ballot in California is nothing.

Cornel West is on the ballot...in Alaska, courtesy of the Alaska-only Aurora Party. Per Ballot Access News.

[Open Source Intelligence]

The weird thing is that the AIP is the state party of the wider constitution party, which raises some odd questions.

Not true. I believe they at one time were the affiliate but we're going back a decade maybe. There was a California Constitution Party affiliate that did not have ballot access. After the death of the longtime California AIP Chair the past year or two, that affiliation was dropped by the national Constitution Party apparatus supposedly in an effort to try and get the AIP affiliation and therefore California ballot access (which matters for nothing else other than it guarantees your presidential nominee minimum 60k votes).

[Open Source Intelligence]

Regardless of how you feel about RFK Jr. - if someone is averaging 15% in polls, he/she should be on the ballot in all 50 states. If RFK Jr misses any major state, then I think the rules need to change

LMAO, no. polling should not determine ballot access, that's blasphemous.

In theory there should be one universal standard and everyone that meets that standard are the only people on the ballot nationally and they are on every state ballot. But Republicans and Democrats are corrupt people that don't want competition, so we'll never get that.

[Open Source Intelligence]

RFK Jr. podcast with Richard Winger on the ballot access scheme in the country.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5VWlsFNtphVIUxCit8qZma?si=AYrcnm8HSJmva5EPIU0uog&nd=1&dlsi=712568340d4f42d1

[Open Source Intelligence]

National Catholic Register story on Peter Sonski and the American Solidarity Party.

https://www.ncregister.com/cna/meet-peter-sonski-the-catholic-you-ve-never-heard-of-who-s-running-for-president

[Open Source Intelligence]

Peter Daou and Cornel West are demonrat has-beens doing one last operation for crooked Hillary.

What is evident is that SPUSA is very foolish running their own candidate and not continuing on the green gravy train. It worked pretty well for the past 4 years, why stop now?

I think they would dispute the "worked pretty well for the past 4 years".

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1739596836560683171

No one but the media and some Bernouts care about Cornel West. He’ll be as impactful as Jesse Ventura.

I think a lot of people haven't quite realized that given that West is way more telegenic, famous at least within a certain sphere, and better at giving a good quote than Jill Stein. That said, you're absolutely right that Cornel West is running a Potemkin campaign and won't be on the ballot basically anywhere while Jill Stein will be on the ballot in many relevant states.

Shorter answer: Arab-Americans in Michigan upset with Biden won't be threatening to vote for West, they'll be threatening to vote for Stein or RFK Jr. (Honestly starting to revise my early skepticism of RFK as he's proven to be more serious about this than he originally did and think he might be a way bigger factor than I initially thought)

You think RFK Jr. can collect 12k signatures in Michigan by July 18? I'm skeptical.

Easy. As long as you have the money, 12k in signatures for a presidential candidate in a state the size of Michigan is not a high hurdle.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Do we have any speculation at all on who RFK would pick as VP?

I only ask because a lot of states, RFK can't collect ballots until he has a running mate. Also, his website is extremely good on the ballot access section.

https://www.kennedy24.com/ballot-access

Placeholder VP candidates are very common for 3rd parties dealing with early entry deadlines.

[Open Source Intelligence]

https://www.semafor.com/article/02/09/2024/libertarians-could-supercharge-rfk-jrs-campaign-but-can-he-prove-hes-one-of-them

Good article by Weigel about RFK reaching out to the Libertarians and the question as to whether the Libertarians, who have become increasingly hardline over the last 8 and especially 4 years, are interested.

If RFK Jr gets the Libertarian line, he could probably make 49 or even 50 state ballots (New York State's ballot access threshold is super high, so that's the one I left as a question). Without the Libertarian line, he'll be lucky to get in the 30s of states, with some, including several of the largest states like CA, TX, and NY being basically extreme longshots.

That said, if he does take the Libertarian line, he may well be stuck with some rando as his running mate and they may force him to change some views to meet their litmus tests to get the nomination. It's going to be hard for a career environmental lawyer to win over activists of a party that doesn't think that environmental law should be a thing.

If the Mises Caucus nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for President, they will do nothing other than demonstrate they are hypocrites of the nth degree considering how the nomination of Bill Weld for VP was inexcusable to most of them.

I don't expect RFK Jr. as nominee. He'd probably rather it handed to him instead of going through the process of a delegate race and then potentially losing.

[Open Source Intelligence]

this is the latest ballot access for the green party/jill stein. the yellow states' window for petitioning hasnt opened yet. oklahoma is the infamously difficult state requiring either 35k signatures or a $35k filing fee. jill is also slowly but surely on her way to matching funds (she needs $5,000 in small donations from 20 states; she has met that in 6 states already and the next 13 are all over $2,500)

https://twitter.com/DrJillStein/status/1756086568589148345

Her map only shows 19 states + DC with ballot access, not 20 as she claims ...

All the political parties once you get past stating the District of Columbia consider it a state. If you read the Democrats' and Republicans' national party bylaws, once they define D.C. and the territories, they are considered states throughout the rest of the documents for the sake of brevity.

[Open Source Intelligence]

Cornell West is following RFK's lead and is launching the Justice for All Party.

It's a purely ballot access ploy. It's easier in some states for a party to get ballot access instead of an independent, even if the party has nothing inside it beyond its presidential figurehead.

[Open Source Intelligence]

The Socialist Workers Party announced its national ticket on February 17. For president, Rachele Fruit of Florida. For vice-president, Margaret Trowe of California.