Health & Fitness
The power of crossover endorsements
Minor parties are trying to have a say in Connecticut by cross-endorsing major party candidates instead of running their own. What impact is this having?
By Michael Ferguson
On November 6th voters will look at their ballots and see a lot of names twice. Many may not understand why and ask themselves “I though he was a Democrat” or “I thought she was a Republican”. But, minor parties have taken a very active role in recent years in our state to have an impact. To do this, they have decided to cross-endorse candidates from the major two parties, having those candidates appear twice on the ballot.
In 2010, Tom Foley received about 20,000 more votes on the Republican line than Dan Malloy did on the Democratic line. However, Malloy had the cross-endorsement of the Working Families Party. On this line he got about 26,000 votes. Therefore, when added to his total on the Democratic line, Malloy won by about 6,000 votes.
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Due to this cross-endorsement power, there has been a strong effort in our state by candidates to appear on the ballot twice. In the U.S. Senate race this year, Chris Murphy has received the Working Families nomination, and Linda McMahon has the Independent Party nomination. McMahon has even started to highlight this in a new ad which has voters saying they plan on splitting their ticket by voting for McMahon on the Independent line because they say she will be able to work across party lines and break the gridlock in Washington D.C.
Multiple local candidates also have these cross-endorsements. With candidates on both sides seeking minor party endorsements it will be interesting to see if they have as much of an impact. One thing is for sure; it is very possible for a candidate listed on the ballot twice to do better. However, if their opponent is also listed twice perhaps they will just balance each other out. What do you think?
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