Sore Loser Laws

Election laws in all but a few states prevent candidates who have run and lost in party primaries from coming back in the general election campaign and running as independent or third-party candidates. These sore loser laws can take the form of outright statutory prohibitions, provisions that require non–major-party candidates to file to run for the general election prior to the date on which the primary is held, or other limitations. As of 2011 only three states—Connecticut, Iowa, and New York—did not have a sore loser law.

Although they are rarely the cause for much public discussion during a campaign, sore loser laws—or the lack thereof—made the news in a pair of controversy-tinged congressional elections in 2006 and one spectacular contest in 2010.

The biggest newsmaker involved Democratic senator Joseph I. Lieberman's campaign for reelection in Connecticut, which has no sore loser law but makes it difficult for a primary loser to switch to an independent or third-party candidacy. A candidate wishing to do so must file sufficient petition signatures and meet other ballot qualifications by the close of business on the day after the primary, which occurred on August 8 in 2006.

Lieberman, who in 2000 had been the Democratic nominee for vice president on the narrowly unsuccessful ticket headed by Al Gore, had in more recent years stirred a backlash among many Democratic voters, particularly liberal activists, with his outspoken defense of President George W. Bush's decision to commit U.S. troops to war in Iraq. By midsummer 2006, it had become clear that Lieberman was at serious risk of losing the primary to Ned Lamont, a wealthy businessman and antiwar activist who was little known to voters when he entered the contest.

Because the one-day separation between the primary and the independent candidate filing deadline made it impossible for him to wait for the primary outcome, Lieberman announced well in advance that he would run as an independent if he lost the primary. That move further alienated some Democrats and may have contributed to his narrow primary defeat by Lamont, but it enabled him to comfortably meet the filing requirements to run on a third-party line. Running as the nominee of “Connecticut for Lieberman” and benefiting from widespread support from Republican voters who opposed the liberal Lamont but were turned off by the weak Republican nominee, Lieberman won reelection with 50 percent of the vote and a 10-point margin over Lamont.

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Lieberman had said he would continue to caucus with the Democrats in the Senate, and he provided Democratic leaders with the crucial fifty-first vote they needed to take control of the Senate following their six-seat gain in the 2006 elections. But Lieberman soon thereafter declared himself an independent.

The other 2006 case in which a sore loser law came into play was the contest in Ohio's Eighteenth Congressional District. After long denying wrongdoing in the scandal involving influence peddling by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Republican representative Bob Ney in August 2006 renounced the GOP nomination he had won in May, quit the race, and announced he would soon resign his seat. At the recommendation of Ney and others, the state Republican Party backed state senator Joy Padgett to replace Ney on the ballot.

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