From Richard Winger at Ballot Access News:
This is old news that Ballot Access News had previously missed. On November 4, 2014, an independent candidate was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives from Merrimack County district 10, which includes Hopkinton and part of Concord. The independent winner is David Luneau.
See this story about the campaign. The district elects three representatives. Luneau came in third with 2,293, and was elected along with two of the three Democratic nominees. Thanks to Darryl Perry for the information.
The December 1, 2014 Ballot Access News print issue said that fourteen independent candidates had been elected to state legislatures on November 4, 2014, but that should have said fifteen were elected.
Evidence that NH is one of, at best, a half-dozen states where Libertarians can actually get elected running major-party, and the only state where that happens in significant numbers (roughly a quarter of NH states reps, or half the GOP caucus, are reasonably defined as lowercase-l libertarians). Also how easy it is for anybody to be elected to the NH House (average number of constituents per rep: just 3,000).
Still, I’d like to see some of the ones who do so, officially switch back to the LP while in office. Whether elected as a Libertarian, or elected as a major party before switching in-office, we desperately need to have some capital-L state legislators again. I would even go so far as saying we should have a dedicated organization, either within the LP or a PAC, with the sole focus of electing a handful of Libertarian state legislators. It would be a huge morale boost for the party, we’ve done it before, and it’s ridiculous that the undisputed “third-largest party” doesn’t currently have any elected legislators anywhere in the nation.
Max Abramson was elected as a Republican legislator in NH. He almsot ran as a Libertarian for Governor this year (I believe. If not, US Senate), and was a long shot candidate for the LP 2012 presidential nomination, receiving I believe one or two delegate votes from NH.
Interestingly, the article says he “failed to get enough votes” in the Democratic primary to appear as a Democrat on the ballot. He might not have showed up on earlier lists because he’s still a Democrat and intends to be one in the legislature. I can’t find anything either way about if he intends to self-describe as an independent representative, or as a Dem and a member of their caucus.
And: http://www.ballot-access.org/2015/01/montana-almost-elected-an-independent-candidate-to-the-legislature-in-november-2014