Independent Political Report has heard a swirl of rumors about various third-party and independent candidates vying for office in New York City.
What seems relatively settled is that the NY Green Party has a slate of candidates for races around New York, including Anthony Gronowicz for Mayor, Julia Willebrand for City Comptroller and several city council and borough president races.
The Libertarian slate seems to be unsettled. The State party has Michael Sanchez for Mayor and Hesham El-Meligy for Comptroller. But there are rumors of other candidates for some of these slots. Names we’ve heard include Joe Lhota, Kristin Davis, Sam Sloan and Tom Stevens. There may be others. As previously reported on IPR, the NYC Libertarian convention endorsed a slate including Lhota and Davis.
While it is IPR’s understanding that only the candidates recognized by the state party can run on the line, there has been talk of litigation from the other candidates.
On his “Liberty Lion” blog, Stevens reports on e-mail arguments between Sloan and Davis’ campaign manager Andrew Miller.
Meanwhile, Davis is also running on the “Personal Freedom Party” line, though the purported party doesn’t appear to have a website and the Facebook page for it appears to be run by Stevens who claims to be a libertarian official.
There has also been talk of problems with petitioning, including candidates instructing petitioners to solicit improper signatures and candidates welching on paying petitioners.
IPR would appreciate comments from the various candidates letting us know the status of their petitioning and anything else they’d like to let us all know about the status. If there are any third party or independent candidates we’ve missed, please let us know.
Disclosure: The author of this article (and owner of this website) is generally allied with the New York State LP, and generally antagonistic toward some of the other candidates. This includes a pending lawsuit against Davis and one of her advisors. The author has tried to be objective in writing this article.
@1 The Conservative Party has endorsed Lhota. The Independence Party has endorsed Adolfo Carrion, Jr.
The post’s reference to “the NYC Libertarian convention” is to the April convention, which never had a Credentials Committee and whose chair allowed anyone in the room to vote. There was a subsequent authorized “NYC Libertarian convention” in June that properly credentialed its delegates, ruled that the April convention was invalid, and endorsed Michael Sanchez for NYC Mayor and Hashem El-Meligy for NYC Comptroller. It also approved an Endorsement Committee that later endorsed Alex Merced for NYC Public Advocate. Just so you know. I gather the LPNY expects those three candidates to have the LP line on the November ballot.
Reform Partys Carl Person?
Green Party NY looks like it has act together. LP ok I guess. Where is the Conservative Party, Socialists(of different stripes), and even Independence Party?