[EL] 2020 Presidential candidates

[Richman, Jesse T.]

Great graph Brian!  It's remarkable how much of a phase shift seems to have happened with the 2016 cycle. Suddenly many more people were 'running' for President.

The ballotpedia version of the graph you posted indicates that the jump occurred both among people claiming to be affiliated with one of the major parties and among independents.  But perhaps most among independents.

[cid:image002.png at 01D4D4F6.20E13360]

https://ballotpedia.org/List_of_registered_2020_presidential_candidates.

But if the early numbers are any indication, we haven't seen ANYTHING yet.  As of March 2 2015 there were merely 178 candidates with papers filed according to data on ballotpedia (https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_candidates,_2016) while we are already at about 580 as of March 2nd 2019.  If this pace continues, we might break the 5000 candidate mark by the end of this cycle!

The 2020 cycle filings do continue the basic pattern from earlier in the series that more filings come from the opposite major party.  196 Democratic and Democrat-Farmer-Labor filings versus only 75 Republican filings (excluding the duplicate entry for Arnold Matthew Jones).  Thus, the same processes seem to be in play as in the past, only on a much larger candidate-number scale.

The 2020 list seems to have a few obviously prank names like those you highlighted (Boddie, President R19 and Internet, Beef are both running for instance). None the less the prank names are obviously merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of completely non-serious or otherwise frivolous filings. How many of these 'candidates' are really people who are running?  Has doing a vanity filing so that one can say "I ran for President" become much more of a cultural 'thing' for some reason?

Jesse


Jesse Richman
Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies
Old Dominion University
757-201-5484

From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> On Behalf Of Roberts, Brian E
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2019 2:29 PM
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] 2020 Presidential candidates

The 2020 candidate list needs to grow a bit if it wants to match 2016:


[cid:image001.png at 01D4D4F5.A08713B0]


Do we think the Russians were responsible for the likes of the following duly registered 2016 presidential candidates:

BUSHDID, 9/11
THE PUPPET, ZIBBLE
DADDY, DISCO
CHRIS D ROCKMAN, JESUS IRON MAN MR. JR
FROG, KERMIT
BUTTOCKS, SYDNEYS VOLUPTOUS
JEKYLL, DR.
PAWTER OF GRYFFINDOR, HAIRY JAY-MZ MC
TRUMP, THE MUSLIM DICTATOR
ANTICHRIST, THE
AL? N?R?, M?RZ? ḤUSAYN PROPHET

CHICKEN, FROSTY

ABOVE, ZERO, NONE OF THE

DONUTS, COFFEE AND
TROLLS, WHY SO MANY
GUMP, FORREST
SPARROW, JACK
PLEASE, BITCH
RAFF, RIFF
DOG, SEVEN THE
SALAD, JEWISH JAMES MR.
FOURPOUNDER, CRACKED

CHEESE, FOOT

FSOCIETY, FSOCIETY FSOCIETY FS FS

HEY HE STOLE THAT GUY'S, PIZZA
COSTELLO, LAGOON THE DOLPHIN MR.
SPIKEY, PORCUPINES R. MR. JR.
WESTRTHOSE, KANYEWHAT DEEZNUTZ KANYE T
L'EFFETPAP', SUR CANAL+
GRUMP, MISTER
FOR PREZ, YODA
NYARLATHOTEP, CRAWLING CHAOS THE

________________________
Brian Roberts
Professor of Government
University of Texas at Austin

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20190307/f2fd97ce/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 6129 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20190307/f2fd97ce/attachment.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image002.png
Type: image/png
Size: 37141 bytes
Desc: image002.png
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20190307/f2fd97ce/attachment-0001.png>