Joe Lieberman didn’t have it in 2006, but as a sore loser in CT, he was somehow able to get ballot access as an independent for the November general election which, much to the dismay of all the efforts of liberal Democrats to fire him, he won.
Lisa Murkowski didn’t have it in 2010, but as a sore loser in AK, she couldn’t get ballot access for the general election. Instead, she ran as a write-in candidate, and to the dismay of Teabaggers, she won.
Mississippi has a sore loser law; so, McDaniel is SOL for the US Senate in 2016. And the Teabaggers are livid.
Cantor didn’t have it. Virginia prohibits it:
According to the Code of Virginia’s section on candidates and elections (24.2-520), candidates filing for a primary must sign a statement agreeing that if they lose, their names cannot be printed on ballots for the general election. Meaning, if a candidate in the Republican primary for the 5th District loses on June 8, he or she cannot run as a third-party candidate in November.
(And the filing deadline for write-in candidates is the same as for the primary.)
But guess who has it up the wazoo?
This week the NYTimes declined to endorse a candidate in New York’s Democratic primary contest. Cuomo would surely liked to have had that endorsement, but he’s got a fat war chest and his opponent, Zephyr Teachout, remains little known. FWIW, The Nation and NOW endorsed Teachout.
Tonight it has become a bit more interesting. But first three important bits of information. NY primaries are closed. The party candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor run separately in the primary. The two winners run jointly on the party ticket in the general election (single ballot line). However, before the primary election, gubernatorial candidates offer a ticket with one of the Lt. Governor candidates. Cuomo has been running with Kathy Hochul and Teachout with Tim Wu.
The NYTimes just endorsed Tim Wu for Lt. Governor.
There still seems little to no doubt that Cuomo will win the nomination. But will Democrats choose to stick Cuomo with Teachout’s choice for Lt. Governor? And will Teachout perform as poorly as has been predicted?
Teachout has no primary loser insurance. “New York’s progressive political party,” New York – Working Families Party launched Teachout’s political career and then blinked. The Nation covered the gory details of WFP’s nominating convention. Cuomo is their guy. Thus, if by some bizarre twist of fate, Teachout wins the Democratic Party primary, Cuomo will still be on the general election ballot as the WFP nominee. And he’ll have two more lines as the nominee for the Women’s Equality and Independence parties.
The WFP decided to be ever so pragmatic in choosing Cuomo as its nominee. They feared Teachout as their nominee would jeopardize its ballot access and Cuomo would be mean to them after he won his second term. And Cuomo whispered a bunch of sweet nothings to secure the WFP nomination. The WFP basically chose to be irrelevant in the 2014 gubernatorial election. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if this “progressive party” ends up with the DINO candidate and the Democratic Party ends up with the progressive candidate? And the WFP loses ballot access because Cuomo fails to get enough votes on the WFP ballot line?