The Ralph Nader campaign for president this afternoon is turning enough petition signatures to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s Office to qualify for the November ballot in Minnesota.
The Minnesota requirement is 2,000 signatures, and the Nader campaign claims to have more than 4,000 in Minnesota.
With Minnesota, and a similar event planned for Vermont on Thursday, the Nader-Matt Gonzalez ticket will be on the ballot in 45 states, according to Danene Provencher, Nader/Gonzalez Minnesota coordinator. Five other states that have higher thresholds for ballot access (unreasonably high, the Naderites believe) will be write-in states for Nader supporters.
Nader ran as the Green Party presidential nominee in 2000, winning 2.74 percent of the national popular vote. His 2000 running mate was Minnesotan Winona LaDuke. In 2004, he ran as an independent, getting 0.38 percent of the national popular vote.
The most recent poll of which I’m aware that tried to measure Nader’s support in Minnesota was the MPR/Humphrey Institute poll (PDF), taken in mid-August, which offered likely voters four choices for president, including Nader and Libertarian nominee Bob Barr. That poll found the race in Minnesota standing this way:
Democrat Barack Obama, 48; Republican John McCain, 38, Nader, 3 percent, and Barr, 1 percent
