The N.C. Libertarian Party will have 38 candidates on the fall ballot.

The newly re-recognized party formally presented its list of candidates for state and federal offices to the State Board of Elections Monday.

As previously announced, Duke University professor Mike Munger will run for governor. Phillip Rhodes of Chapel Hill is running for lieutenant governor and Mark McMains of Fuquay-Varina for commissioner of insurance. Twenty-four candidates are running for legislative seats.

Chris Cole, a contract postal worker who lives in Huntersville, is running for U.S. Senate. Five candidates are running for Congressional seats: Will Adkins of Cary, Maximillian Longley of Durham, Thomas Hill of Concord, Andy Grum of Matthews and Keith Smith of Bostic.

Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr will also be on the ballot. 

The Libertarian Party will be on the November ballot.

State Board of Elections director Gary Bartlett said he will sign a letter this afternoon recognizing the group as a political party, making the fall elections the eighth time the party has been on the North Carolina ballot.

The Libertarians turned in 72,935 verified signatures to the board on May 15, slightly more than the 70,000 required by state law. Along with the Green Party, it is also suing the state in Wake County Superior Court over ballot access laws that require third parties file a petition with 2 percent of the votes cast in the last governor's race.

The party said it spent four years and nearly $130,000 collecting the signatures.

At a convention in mid-April, it named Duke University professor Mike Munger as its gubernatorial candidate, Mark McMains of Fuquay-Varina for insurance commissioner, Thomas Hill of Concord for the Congressional seat held by U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes.

It also named a number of candidates in legislative races.

Communications Director Brian Irving said there may be more to come.

"Now that we're back on the ballot, we're going to have to go through the process of finding people to run for office," he said.

How much did female solidarity affect down-ballot races?

It's hard to quantify, but we know that Hillary Clinton drew a lot of women to the polls on Tuesday, despite losing to Barack Obama.

We also know that among low- to medium-information voters, one of the only things you can tell about a candidate from looking at the ballot is gender. (You cannot necessarily do the same with race.)

Looking at the dropoff in the down-ballot races, Dome noticed something of a natural experiment that might help quantify the effect of women voters.

The two partisan races with the biggest dropoff from the presidential race were insurance commissioner and labor commissioner. Coincidentally, one of those two races had no female candidates, while the other had two. (There were no women in the lieutenant governor's race as well.)

The dropoff was not as substantial in the races for state treasurer, state auditor and schools superintendent.

To pick the two that are most comparable, neither state auditor nor insurance commissioner are offices in which the average voter has a strong opinion. Both were two-person races without an incumbent. None of the candidates advertised heavily on television and all are relying on public financing.

But 1,253,251 people voted in the auditor's race, while only 1,223,609 voted in the insurance commissioner's race — a difference of 29,642 votes. That's a little less than 2 percent of the total Democratic voters.

Complicating factors: The incumbent auditor is a Republican who Democrats are eager to unseat. Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin previously ran for statewide office and had a small TV ad buy. Ballot order may have affected voting rates.

Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the number of women in the labor commissioner's race. 

The Democratic presidential primary was the hot ticket last night.

The heated and historic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama drew many voters to the polls who typically don't cast ballots in the primary and inspired some first-time voters.

But how many of them stuck around to vote in the other races?

Taking the presidential race as the high-water mark, we see that roughly 1.6 million people voted in the Democratic primary.

Nearly all of those stuck around for the governor's race. In the primary between Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue, 1.5 million voted, or 95 percent of the presidential voters.

After that, it gets interesting.

Nearly the same number of voters stuck around for the U.S. Senate race (85 percent) and the lieutenant governor's race (84 percent), or roughly 1.3 million votes.

The races for state treasurer (80 percent), state auditor (79 percent) and schools superintendent (79 percent) races, also did well, with roughly 1.3 million votes.

The numbers dropped off after that in the races for insurance commissioner (76 percent) and labor commissioner (76 percent), or roughly 1.2 million.

Election Day is in two weeks, and most voters don't have a clue who they like in most of the statewide contests.

According to a recent survey of 962 likely Democratic primary voters, the majority have not decided who to vote for in a handful of Council of State races.

The tally:

State Treasurer - 63 percent undecided.

State Auditor - 58 percent undecided.

Superintendent of Public Instruction - 52 percent undecided.

Insurance Commissioner - 66 percent undecided.

Labor Commissioner - 60 percent undecided.

A TV ad for Wayne Goodwin, candidate for the Democratic nomination for state insurance commissioner.

Equality NC PAC announced its endorsements in several statewide primaries.

The political arm of North Carolina's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group was one of two PACs to announce support for state Treasurer Richard Moore for governor.

The group cited as evidence of his support for equal rights Moore's decision as treasurer to adopt a non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation.

"Treasurer Moore has demonstrated leadership in standing up for fairness in state government and is committed to fighting discrimination as governor," Ian Palmquist, the group's executive director, wrote in a press release.

The group also endorsed Wayne Goodwin for insurance commissioner, state Sen. Janet Cowell for treasurer and incumbent June Atkinson for superintendent of public instruction.

The folks at N.C. Voters for Clean Elections say that public financing of campaigns is catching on with several candidates for Council of State offices.

The group says that nine of the 11 candidates for state insurance commissioner, state auditor and superintendent of public instruction - the only offices eligible for the new state program - have said they intend to participate in the program. They will take part in a press conference Wednesday to discuss the program.

Under the program, candidates for those three offices can receive a grant to pay for their campaigns if they collect at least $29,000 in small donations from at least 750 registered voters, according to a release by NCVCE. They must also agree to spending and fundraising limits.

The AFL-CIO has made endorsements in seven races.

As previously noted, the state chapter of the labor coalition is backing Hampton Dellinger, a former aide to Gov. Mike Easley, for lieutenant governor, and it is sitting out the Democratic gubernatorial contest between Richard Moore and Beverly Perdue.

In the other races, women and Democrats scored big.

The AFL-CIO picked state Sen. Kay Hagan for U.S. Senate, state Sen. Janet Cowell for state treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson for re-election, former auditor's employee Beth Wood for state auditor and Mary Fant Donnan for labor commissioner.

The only other male endorsement went to Wayne Goodwin for insurance commissioner.

All of the endorsed candidates are Democrats in contested primaries.

Jim Long's hand is going to get hot soon.

First, the longtime insurance commissioner passed the torch to his handpicked choice for successor, deputy commissioner Wayne Goodwin, at a last-minute filing Friday.

Then, he took the torch back so he could pass it again at this morning's Council of State's meeting, taking a moment of personal privilege to introduce Goodwin to the other top statewide elected officials, who probably remember him from his 2004 run for labor commissioner.

"It's time to move on and pass the torch to the younger generation," Long said.

He then introduced Goodwin, who waved to the audience.

The actual torch will be passed after the contested Democratic primary, in which Goodwin faces David C. Smith, and the November election, in which the winner will face John Odom.