“The New Hampshire Libertarian Party has again issued a call for political violence,” New Hampshire Public Radio reports.
In a post on X, the party’s account wrote: “We openly support the assassination of basically every elected Democrat in New Hampshire.”
Washington Post: “In Pennsylvania, Michigan and Virginia battleground races, independents and Green candidates have popped up as left-wing alternatives to Democrats, even though their social media and voter registration history show them as supporters of President Donald Trump.”
“Republicans have a simple strategy for how to campaign against a slate of independent candidates running for Senate seats in red states: Take every opportunity to tie them to Democrats,” NOTUS reports.
“In Nebraska, South Dakota, Idaho and Montana, Republican Senate candidates are running against independents who have held the Democratic Party at arm’s length in order to make competitive runs. These are states where Democratic candidates have flopped in recent years.”
“Frustrated with his fellow Democrats, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia in 2024 gave up his lifelong membership in the Democratic Party to become an independent as he ended his congressional career,” the New York Times reports.
“Now he is trying to get more people like himself elected to Congress in a bid to break the stranglehold of the rigid two-party system that helped drive him away from Capitol Hill.”
“A Missouri judge has issued an arrest warrant for three-time presidential candidate Jill Stein after she skipped a scheduled Monday court appearance in connection with her alleged assault on a police officer at an April 2024 anti-Israel college protest,” the New York Post reports.
“Greg Ballard, the former two-term Republican mayor of Indianapolis, is running for secretary of state in Indiana this year, hoping to create a new party that he says would increase competition in general elections and moderate growing extremism in the state,” NBC News reports.
“Ballard, 71, gathered more than 37,000 signatures — an endeavor that cost his campaign more than $780,000 — to get his name on the ballot as an independent candidate.”
“Under Indiana state law, if a candidate wins at least 2% of the votes in the secretary of state race, their party secures ballot access for the next four years. Ballard is calling his party ‘the Lincoln Party’ and vows to pave the way for independent candidates to run under the moniker in the future.”
“Tucker Carlson used a highly promoted livestream Wednesday to unveil a 10-point vision for America — defining the worldview of a breakaway MAGA faction increasingly at odds with President Trump,” Axios reports.
“After vowing last month to ‘help build a third party,’ Carlson fueled further speculation this weekend by hosting MAGA dissidents at his home in Maine, where they urged him to run for president in 2028.”
”The former Fox News host stopped short of a formal launch, instead presenting the manifesto as the foundation for ‘whatever comes next.’”
The Wrap: Tucker Carlson on the 2028 presidential ballot would “doom” the Republican Party.
Tucker Carlson said he’s sharing something with his followers at 6 p.m. ET.
Said Carlson: “MAGA was betrayed. We all were. It’s time for a new path forward.”
The Economist: “Running as an independent is sufficiently difficult that, at least historically, few politicians have deemed it wise to do so. Independent candidates lack the campaign infrastructure of an established party and, in many states, must collect more signatures to earn a place on a ballot. However aspiring politicians now face a shifting set of odds.”
“Last year 45% of Americans identified as independent, the highest share since at least 1988, according to Gallup. Those independents are, in turn, five percentage points more likely to lean Democratic than Republican. Centrists who might have formerly identified as Democrats are taking note.”
“Former Republicans Majorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson are apparently serious about their plans to launch a new political party — and they’ve got some help too,” Mediaite reports.
“Greene posted a picture on Saturday of her and her new husband Brian Glenn sitting at a wooden table headed by Carlson, who was flanked by lame duck Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and another ex-fan of President Donald Trump: Joe Kent, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center who quit earlier this year in protest of the Iran war. Massie and Kent’s wife are also seated at the table.”
Said Greene: “We said no more foreign wars and we meant it and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise. But he’s betrayed us all. Our commitment is America First for all Americans, right, left, and center. The movement has begun.”
“A year and a half after leaving office, former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is embarking on a new political chapter with an initiative designed to elect independents to Congress,” NPR reports.
Said Manchin: “The way the parties have weaponized the political process today, they make it impossible to have a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ next to your name and speak to the other side.”
“Former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is launching the Independent Leadership Council, a new effort to elect independent candidates to Congress that will focus first on competitive seats this election cycle,” Semafor reports.
Said Manchin: “We’re trying to build a true independent network. Not a third party, but a movement of people that will bring our country and the people who are participating in politics today more towards the center.”
CNN: Joe Manchin reenters the political orbit with a new independent experiment.
“One of the biggest wild cards in Georgia politics won’t be on the November ballot. It means there likely won’t be statewide runoff races in Georgia this year,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“The Libertarian Party of Georgia said it can’t submit the roughly 72,000 signatures required by the Tuesday deadline to qualify statewide candidates for the ballot.”
“It means Georgia voters won’t have a Libertarian option in statewide races in November, removing third-party candidates that have repeatedly forced high-profile contests into overtime elections.”
“Tucker Carlson intends to start a new political party after disavowing President Trump and the Republican Party over the Iran war,” the New York Post reports.
Said Carlson: “’I’m going to help build a third party. There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country.”
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) “revealed she is ‘in talks’ to launch a ‘true America-Focused’ political party, one week after she announced she was ditching the GOP,” Mediaite reports.
She added: “I’ll also say this — it’s going to take the American people to get involved, and the American people are the ones that really push campaigns. And so if the American people truly want to give a strong challenge to the failed two-party system of America, then they’re going to have to step up.”
New York Times: “Democrats and Republicans alike have waged legal and rhetorical war over the name of the would-be Arizona Independent Party, underscoring the tension in the state as it enters a midterm election season with a lot on the line, including the governorship, the attorney general’s post and at least two U.S. House seats.”
“The fight centers on the use of the I-word, independent, the most common way to refer to the state’s many politically unaffiliated residents, who make up more than a third of its electorate.”
A new Gallup poll finds the share of American adults who identify as political independents hit a record high of 45% last year, Semafor reports.
The increase over the past high of 43%, recorded in 2014, 2023, and 2024, was partially driven by younger Americans increasingly identifying as independent.
CNN: “Among independents, there is a subset that rejects party labels but aligns closely with one of the two major parties on many issues, which we’re calling Democratic Lookalikes and Republican Lookalikes. The poll also identifies two groups that remix the definition of a traditional swing voter — the Disappointed Middle and the Upbeat Outsiders. A fifth group — The Checked Out — is largely uninterested in politics.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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