Third Party and Independent Successes in California Primary

On June 5^th, the State of California held its primary vote for the 2018 statewide and congressional elections. Unlike most states, California operates under a Top-Two Primary System for statewide and congressional offices. Most partisan state elections typically operate under system in which each party or independent candidate has or petitions to attain a ballot line for the general election, and certain political parties hold primary votes to select among competing candidates for a party's nomination for office in the general election. In California's Top-Two Primary system, all candidates petition to get on a single primary vote ballot, and only the two candidates which receive two largest vote totals are able to get on the general election ballot.

The Top-Two system has its variety of supporters and critics. Some contend that the top two system acts to repress the performance of third parties and makes it easier for single parties to dominate over entire electoral areas. This article isn't about evaluating the Top-Two System, but mentioning it is important for describing the environment in which these primary performances had occurred.

Despite the power of the Democratic and Republican Parties, Minor Party and Independent Candidates still managed to gather some significant results in the California Primary.

In the race for state insurance commissioner, Independent Candidate Steve Poizner came in first place, with over 1,500,000 votes, and will proceed to the general election.

In the 20^th congressional district, Independent candidate Ronald Kabat came in second place, and will proceed to the general election.

The Green Party had two congressional candidates who managed to get enough votes to be able to proceed to the general election against Democratic candidate Jimmy Panetta.

In the 34^th congressional district, Green candidate Kenneth Mejia came in second place, and will face against Democratic candidate Jimmy Gomez in the general election.

In the 40^th congressional district, Green candidate Rodolfo Cortez Barragan came in second place, and will face against Democratic candidate Lucille Roybal-Allard in the general election.

These minor party and independent accomplishments are part of their overall performance in the Primary. From available information from the New York Times and The Sacramento Bee, I've totaled up the performance of minor party and independent candidates in the primary. Though since California officials have not finished totaling up all absentee ballot at the time that this is written, the final vote totals may end up producing slightly different numbers an the final cumulative vote results for minor party and independent candidates will likely be somewhat higher.

In the congressional and senate races, there were 8 Green Party candidates, 6 Libertarian Party candidates, 2 Peace and Freedom Party candidates, 1 American Independence Party Candidates, and 28 candidates who were independent candidates or candidates of minor parties that don't have statewide ballot access and thus were listed without party designation. This produces a total of 45 minor party and independent candidates.

In Statewide races, there were 4 Green Party Candidates, 4 Libertarian Party Candidates, 5 Peace and Freedom Party Candidates, and 9 Independent/non-state recognized minor party candidates. This produces at total of 22 minor party and independent candidates for statewide offices. And it produces a total of 67 minor party and independent candidates for state or federal offices, who were on the California Primary Ballot.

For vote totals for congressional offices: Green Party candidates received a total of 23,613 votes, Libertarian candidates received a total of 46,620 votes, Peace and Freedom candidates received a total of 19,309 votes, American Independence Party candidates received a total of 3,587 votes, and Independent/ non-state recognized minor party candidates received a total of 135,030 votes. This produces a total of 228,159 votes for minor party and independent candidates.

For vote totals for statewide offices: Green Party candidates received a total of 133,189 votes, Libertarian Party candidates received a total of 185,730 votes, Peace and Freedom Party candidates received a total of 440,690 votes, and Independent/ non-state recognized minor party candidates received a total of 1,754,995 votes (with 1,521,873 votes for Poizner, and 233,122 for the rest of them). This produces a total of 2,524,604 votes for minor party and independent candidates for statewide offices. And this produces a total of 2,752,763 votes for minor party and independent candidates for statewide and federal offices in the California Primary.While it is uncertain exactly how many individual voters voted for minor party or independent candidates, the data indicates that there were at least 1,709,168 of them, and that 25.7%-46.4% percent of primary voters had voted for at least one minor party or independent candidate.

These figures help to demonstrate that while the two major parties may currently hold a large position in the state's elections, that were still dozens of minor party and independent candidates, and that there were millions of voters who were willing to vote for them.