For presidential candidates who are not the Republican or Democratic Party nominee, getting on the ballot for the general election is a state-by-state, make-or-break scramble. Each state has unique (and sometimes confusing) election laws, and the process for qualifying as a minor party — like the Green Party — is typically different from the process of getting on the ballot as an independent candidate, like the theologian Cornel West or the environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., neither of whom have a national party affiliation.

Though it depends on the state, the Green Party, like other minor national parties, typically secures ballot access by virtue of its performance in a preceding election. For example, the Green Party recently lost its ballot line in New York State because its candidate did not meet a strict new voter threshold — 2 percent of the total votes cast — in the 2020 presidential election. And so to get on the New York ballot this year, the Green Party must gather 45,000 signatures in a six-week window that closes at the end of May.

This is the same process that Mr. Kennedy and Mr. West must go through to gain ballot access in New York and in dozens of other states. Some states have rules against people coming in from out of state to help a campaign procure signatures; others have rules that restrict a campaign’s ability to hire paid canvassers instead of relying solely on volunteers. Some states allow months for independent candidates to gather signatures, while others have short windows. Some states require a vice presidential nominee on the petition. The work of actually gathering thousands of signatures, and ensuring that all these rules are met, is grueling and often costly.

Here’s where Mr. Kennedy, Mr. West and the Green Party — which is expected to select its nominee at its convention in July — stand.

The House of Representatives is back in session for four weeks straight on Monday after a brief recess — and for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., it will be the start of a legislative sprint with one less reliable House GOP vote.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who was regarded as a rising Republican star, shocked even some of his colleagues when he announced last month that he would leave Congress before the end of his term. The House announced his official departure on Friday.

Due to the timing of his retirement, his seat will not be filled until the next congressional term in January 2025.

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Johnson’s public remarks and even leadership decisions have reflected that he’s keenly aware of the historically slim two-seat margin he’s been dealing with. 

It’s likely to get even smaller sometime over the next several weeks — at least for a time. 

The special election to replace retired Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., in New York’s 26th Congressional District is Tuesday. The heavily urban seat skews in favor of Democrats; President Biden won the Buffalo-area district by nearly 30 points in 2020.

House GOP leaders are expected to get some relief in late May, when two Republicans running to replace ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., face-off in a special runoff election. McCarthy left the House at the end of last year, but no candidate was able to secure a majority vote in the March race to replace him — by California state law, it triggers a runoff.

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Gallagher stunned even some of his colleagues when he announced his early retirement last month. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

But if Higgins’ old seat stays in Democratic hands, it’s likely Johnson will have to navigate at least part of this four-week stint with just a one-vote majority. That means he’d only be able to lose one Republican lawmaker on any party-line vote.

A House GOP aide who spoke with Fox News Digital, however, downplayed potential concerns. They argued that Johnson has already successfully ushered through most critical legislation coming in the near future, save for the reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the deadline for which is May 10.

“Absent the FAA reauthorization, which will pass later this year, Speaker Johnson has done the job entrusted to him,” the House GOP aide argued. 

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“While his majority may shrink with another GOP resignation, he’s already won the tough legislative battles. Any dysfunction moving forward falls squarely on those who refuse to govern and prefer to complain.”

The aide was referencing members of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus and their allies, who have wielded outsized influence over the House GOP’s thin majority by voting in small blocs to kill or block Republican leaders’ legislation in protest of their handling of critical matters like government spending and foreign aid.

The group has already signaled that they’re putting up a fight over another coming legislative battle — funding the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. 

It’s possible that Congress will contend with its role in funding the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the coming weeks. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The Freedom Caucus put out a statement earlier this month demanding that any funding allocated by Congress be offset by spending cuts elsewhere, and that the funds would solely focus on bridge reconstruction.

It’s not immediately clear when a funding bill could take shape or how much leverage conservatives have, given the strong bipartisan support it’s expected to receive. But GOP rebels are expected to give Johnson a hard time if he tries to pass it through traditional mechanisms that rely solely on party-line votes.

Before Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York got underway, pundits predicted that the proceedings could be a media bonanza for the former president. During this year’s Republican primaries, they noted, Trump’s popularity rose every time he was indicted.

But so far, the trial, on charges that Trump covered up illicit payments to an adult filmmaker and actor to influence the 2016 election, hasn’t made him look like much of a hero.

He’s appeared to fall asleep in the courtroom more than once. He’s grumbled at potential jurors. He’s been reprimanded by the judge. He looks more like an desperately unhappy defendant than a potential commander in chief.

And it’s likely to get worse. Over the next six weeks, the trial may include testimony from Stormy Daniels, the porn performer with whom Trump allegedly had a one-night stand, and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model who accepted money to conceal another alleged affair.

The tawdry details will produce plenty of tabloid drama — but not the kind Trump reveled in when he was a young, publicity-hungry mogul. (Trump has denied having affairs with the women.)

More important, the trial might begin to cure voters of the affliction known as “Trump amnesia” — the tendency to forget all the reasons they voted against the presumptive Republican nominee in 2020.

Pollsters and campaign consultants who conduct focus groups, organized discussions with voters, say they run into it all the time.

Celinda Lake, one of President Biden’s pollsters, said she discovered the syndrome when she asked voters how they felt about Trump’s impending trial over the events surrounding the violent Jan. 6, 2021, invasion of the Capitol.

“What court case?” one of the voters asked.

“These were swing voters, and about half of them weren’t sure what we were talking about,” Lake recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, you know, the insurrection, and that he was the one who provoked it.’ They go: ‘Oh, yeah, I kind of forgot about that.’ ”

The reasons for the epidemic of memory loss aren’t mysterious. Trump left office more than three years ago — and for the last two years, voters have been focused on rising prices and mortgage rates, problems they blame on Biden.

When Trump left office in 2021 after his followers sacked the Capitol, the Gallup Poll logged his approval rating at a dismal 34%. By last year, with memories no longer so fresh, voters’ views had softened: 46% said they thought his presidency had been pretty good — a phenomenon some have called “Trump nostalgia.”

Donald Trump speaks with the media Friday following jury selection in his hush-money criminal trial in Manhattan.

(Maansi Srivastava / Associated Press)

Trump has stoked that trend over the last three years by claiming ceaselessly that he produced “the greatest economy in the history of the world” (it wasn’t) with “no inflation” (also untrue).

Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans hope the trials could dent the former president’s support by changing the focus of news coverage, at least for a time, to his many misdeeds.

Trump is facing four different criminal prosecutions: separate federal and Georgia indictments accusing him of trying to undo the 2020 election, a federal indictment accusing him of illegally holding classified documents, and the New York hush-money case. It’s not certain that any of the other three will reach trial by the election.

If he is convicted in any of the four proceedings, polls suggest that a significant number of voters might well desert him.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll this month reported that 13% of voters who currently favor Trump say they won’t vote for him if he is convicted of a felony.

If even a fraction of those voters carry out their threat, the former president’s apparent lead over Biden could evaporate. In 2020, a vote shift of less than a percentage point in three close-run states would have changed the outcome in the electoral college.

It’s reasonable to ask whether a conviction in the New York case, which legal scholars consider the weakest of the indictments Trump faces, would affect voters’ behavior.

But polls have found that most voters believe the hush-money charges qualify as weighty crimes despite their tawdry origins. In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, 64% of respondents said they consider the New York charges serious, including 40% of Republicans.

Not everyone is convinced.

“I think the Biden campaign is whistling past the graveyard on this,” said Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster who is not working for Trump. “The issue is not whether voters remember Trump’s antics. The issue is that they are accurately remembering the economic differences between the two presidencies.”

All of which is true.

Chances are, the hush-money trial in New York isn’t going to swing the election by itself.

But if Trump is convicted of a felony — especially if he is also convicted in more than one of the four trials he faces — that could change enough votes to make a difference in an election that’s likely to be razor-close.

At the very least, the New York trial isn’t doing Trump any measurable good, despite his daily denunciations of the judge, the prosecutor and the gag order that doesn’t seem to be gagging him.

No wonder he looks so annoyed.