Four GOP presidential campaigns file petitions for ballot access
By Norman Leahy | Thursday, December 22nd, 2011 | Catch-AllThe 5PM deadline for Republican presidential campaigns to file their ballot access petitions with the RPV has come and gone. From a press release, we learn that only four members of the Republican field have cleared the first hurdle:
At 5:01 p.m. today, the Republican Party of Virginia received presidential nominating petitions from the State Board of Elections. The following candidates have filed petitions:
* Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
* Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
* Texas Gov. Rick Perry
* Congressman Ron Paul
Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman, then, won’t be on the March 6th primary ballot. Bachmann and Santorum have placed enormous effort into Iowa, the first state to select convention delegates, while Huntsman, who recently made a fundraising trip to Richmond, has put his eggs almost entirely in the New Hampshire basket.
Virginia awards convention delegates on a winner-take-all by congressional district basis.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
Norm Leahy has written about Virginia and national politics online since 2002, beginning with One Man's Trash (OMT), and continuing through Bacon's Rebellion (both the blog and the e-zine), Sic Semper Tyrannis, NBC12's Decision Virginia, Richmond.com and Tertium Quids. He is the chief blogger at "The Score" and a producer of "The Score" radio show as well as being a Washington Examiner contributor.
We're 75% there! Thank you to everyone who has so far contributed! Just $2000 to go!
Comments
37 Responses to "Four GOP presidential campaigns file petitions for ballot access"
Not quite, Norm on how delegates are awarded. There are, in a sense, 12 separate elections.
There is a vote for at-large – if a candidate gets 50% of the vote, they get all the at-large delegates. If not, then any candidate who is over 15% of the vote gets a proportion of the vote.
Then, there is a vote by Congressional district – a plurality won in that district means that all three of the congressional district delegates will vote for the candidate who wins in that district.
At least, that is how it was explained to me. One of these days, RPV will clarify.
Some more info from Dave Rexrode, Executive Director of the RPV:
The good news is that Bachmann, Santorum and Huntsman won’t be cluttering our mailboxes.
Larry Sabato just tweeted “VA GOP is in a pickle. Most petitions have many invalid signatures, 10,000 valid required; 15,000 recommended. Newt:11,050. Perry: 11,911″ – this implies that Newt and Perry still might not qualify for the ballot…which was always the possibility. So it is more than possible it will be Romney v. Paul in Virginia come tomorrow night. If that’s the case, does that become the head-to-head match-up?
Given those numbers, it is unlikely in the extreme that either Gingrich or Perry will qualify for the ballot. The number of illegible signatures, wrong addresses, signatures from people who are not registered to vote, who are registered in a different congressional district, etc., will certainly exceed 2,000. This is just the nature of the process. That is why petition experts recommend that you collect at least 50 percent more signatures than the minimum requirement.
I talked about this today on Coy Barefoot’s WINA radio program in Charlottesville. At the time, I had word of only 3 candidates (Gingrich, Paul, Romney) and learned about Perry’s submission later.
Here’s the podcast: http://bit.ly/sxMXJL
This is a colossal unforced error by the “Northern Virginian from McLean.” In many respects, it shows how some of the political class in NoVA think – that they can just snap their fingers and automatically assume things will work out in the rest of the state.
It just shows how much more organized the Romney and Paul campaigns have been.
If they were able to take Virginia’s tough qualifying rules into consideration and have the ground-game to make it happen, then they have to be the favorites going forward.
If this is still chugging along by Super Tuesday, and the remaining candidates at that point aren’t all on the ballot, Virginia has just relegated itself to an asterisk in the national story of Super Tuesday.
Great work, everybody.
If Virginia’s ballot-access requirements were not so stringent and out-of-synch with other GOP primary states, there would probably be 7-9 candidates on the ballot instead of 2-4.
Does Virginia have an uncommitted line?
The ones who cared about being on the ballot in Virginia and has the support here got it done. The asterisk isn’t Virginia, it’s the ones who aren’t going to be on the ballot.
Well drat. Here I was all ready this morning to download the Newt petition, and then the campaign wrote and said they had all the signatures needed but still wanted 5,000 more “eventually.” Now it seems he won’t qualify for the ballot, and if my choices are Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, I won’t be bothered. Guess I’d better get used to four years of Obama. Merry Christmas, Craig. (Not)
Brian K,
Not so. Virginia’s ballot access requirements keep our vote from being Balkanized among fringe candidates with no national organization. And that make our state a player, not an asterisk. Other states avoid being marginalized by allowing more open ballot access, but winner-take-all delegate selection. I think that our system is more representative of a democracy. Anyone can walk away with Virginia delegates as long as they have the organization to be a serious candidate.
We hustle hard.
[...] BearingDrift comes the report that only four candidates have gotten in their nominating petitions for the [...]
how does any candidate that doesn’t have the campaign infrastructure to get on the ballot expect to win against Obama? why would anyone in Iowa, NH, SC or FL vote for someone who mathematically cannot be the nominee?
Amit, they can’t and they won’t. It’s Romney and Paul and that’s it now. Obama is jumping for joy because the Republican Party has been the “anybody but Romney” and Paul, well….
I predict write in candidates and Obama wins. Matthew 12:25
“And knowing their thoughts he said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand”.
I love Virginia, but the math is still there for someone to win the nomination without VA, definitely would be better to get some of our delegate votes. We are only a small percentage of the total needed.
Geez, how could anyone believe that Romney wouldn’t be the candidate for Virginia, after all Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling is his state campaign chair for the state of VA. And we wonder why Ken Cucinelli is an opponent of his? Huh.
I would have signed a petition for every candidate, but was only asked to sign one for Romney. I found that odd, but I didn’t realize that they just didn’t have the ground game or desire to get it done. Rather disappointing. I like having as many options as possible and will sign petitions for as many Republicans as I can unless I have some serious reservations.
This just goes to show how ridiculous the entire field has been. This is absolute elementary politics….it’s the stuff that school board candidates can even do.
It is absurd that people would consider anyone who can’t even qualify for the ballot. It’s one thing to run a write-in campaign after the deadline passes to submit petitions. But to be running for President of the United States and not be able to file adequate petitions???? That’s laughable. Hasn’t Gingrich already missed the Missouri ballot b/c of this?
While not making the Virginia ballot isn’t necessarily fatal, I would guess that if you’re having problems here, you’re probably having the same problems all over the country.
I always sign all petitions given to me. Every person in America who has a person who will represent them in getting people to sign petitions for them to run for office deserves to at least be on the ballot. That’s what makes America great, the ability to run for office. After that, it’s up to the American people to be informed and make an intelligent choice based upon their own desires for their city, state and country.
Anyone who doesn’t get on the Virginia ballot didn’t have the base support. Or didn’t care enough to get it. Not Presidential material.
Re Newt and Missouri primary vs Missouri caucuses. The primary is meaningless. It was a left-over law but it was too late to change it when the NRP changed the rules on dates. Missouri is now a caucus state and one does not need to file papers for that. The MO primary will be at best a beauty pageant. You know, there is no end of stuff to beat Newt up with, as we read daily. No need to make up lies (enough of those going around. Did anyone read George Will today? Man, he has got a SERIOUS problem with Newt. But I did enjoy seeing the Old Newt at play again this week, dishing back some of Romney & Paul’s multi-million dollar attack campaign.)
Git r dun Chris Stearns.
At this point, there does not appear to be a serious alternative to Romney. Fortunately, Gingrich made his self-destructive move (stating that he would use U.S. Marshals to arrest judges who made ruling with which he disagreed) early in the race before he was able to win a lot of delegates. In the meantime, Romney has racked up a lot of impressive endorsements, including from some stalwart conservative leaders. It is very possible that Romney will become the obvious nominee and might even have the nomination locked up in advance of Super Tuesday.
So uh Ken, I take it you do not consider Paul a serious contender?
I don’t recall Gingrich saying he was going to arrest anybody. I did hear him say judges should be able to be subpoened by Congress, and that he would abolish the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. But didn’t hear him say anything having US Marshals arrest any judges. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I signed Newt’s petition last Saturday, at Evelyn Butts (i.e. Little Creek Direct Transfer Center).
Some young girl (probably late teens) was seeking signatures. If she REALLY wanted them, she would have been at an indirect transfer center, not one where she only got bus riders 3 minutes out of every half hour.
Turbo,
Ken made a typo, I suspect. He meant to say that Ron Paul is a “Sirius” candidate. The brightest star when you have total darkness, but way out there.
Craig,
Yes, Newt actually said that he would have US Marshals arrest judges. Roll the film:
Turbo- Correct. I do not consider Paul to be a serious contender. He has no path to victory and no possibility whatsoever of winning the GOP nomination. At best, he might win Iowa (but will probably come in 2nd). He will not come close to winning any other state.
Great job to the Romney and Paul Campaigns! Both did a great job of following the rules and guidelins set forth by the RPV. As JR indicated, about 2,000 will be ineligible, sometimes that is more and sometimes less. When we go to vote in the GOP Primary the most likely names will only be Governor Romney and Conrgressman Paul.
I have always made a practice of signing any ballot petition that is placed before me, whether Democrat, Republican or otherwise. I firmly believe that every qualified person deserves the right to run for any political office. My vote will only go to the GOP candidate because that is the platform and direction our Country desperately needs. My hope and prayer is that it will be Governor Romney but whomever is the GOP Candidate for President will have my full support here in Portsmouth!
Jim Hewitt
Portsmouth GOP Vice-Chairman
[...] a bit of national fallout from the news that only four of the seven GOP presidential campaigns managed to file the required number of [...]
Perry still has a chance of making the ballot. I wonder how a Perry-Paul-Romney ballot would play in Va?
No candidate can afford to ignore Virginia. As a swing state it’s not just important for the primary but the general election come November. By failing to even put a modicum ground game in the state, Bachmann, Huntsman and Santorum are saying a lot about how they see their chances come November.
Romney by a large margin.
I really hate to bust the Romney supporters’ bubble, but I can’t see Romney swaying enough independents and Democrats to prevail over Obama. For a Republican to succeed in the General election, stark differences on the economy and overseas wars needs to be the two primary issues. Whether or not the Republican establishment elite refuse to acknowledge Paul’s following, only Paul can offer that wide division.
Wally- You make the mistake of assuming that ANY difference between Obama and another candidate would benefit that other candidate. By your reasoning, a candidate advocating for a military dictatorship would have an advantage over Obama because Obama does not seek a military dictatorship.
Romney is not who I would have wanted as our nominee, but he is going to be our nominee by default because there are no other viable candidates in the race. And Romney will, in fact, defeat Obama, because he exudes competence and is not a movement leftist as Obama is.
Ken:
I understand and respect your opinion, yet I doubt if Romney can emanate that competence with his sole success that he identify as the Salt Lake City games. Demographically, Republicans are the minority party in our two party system. Without the necessary crossover from
independents and disgruntled Democrats, Romney will not prevail. Incorrectly, you concluded my argument included ANY stark difference. My basis is predicated upon the platforms that are presented by the candidates currently in question. None of which are outwardly advocating a military dictatorship. The two issues, economy and war, underlined with constitutionality and civil liberties, are the major driving issues. Reservations to a international non-interference self-rule policy is now being recognized as a Neocon stratagem to redefine and align the Mid-east by using holocaustic fears. At this juncture, social issues and border security, other than southern border states, are not primary issues.
Romney, has a tendency to make false promises that he can’t assure or control. For example, he said to a university student in Iowa, “If I am elected President you’ll have a job, if Obama is elected you won’t.”
Leave your response