We continue Election Challenges Episode 2: Independent Candidates with candidates who are not main stream as the focus. Our last podcast was with Mary Nelson, who worked in the administration of Jay Nixon, the former governor of Missouri. Nixon was the Democratic party’s candidate and ran with their full support. Our guest in this episode is Larry Hamm. Larry is the NJ chairman of People’s Organization for Progress (POP), an independent, grass roots, political organization. His supporters encouraged him to run against Corey Booker for the Booker’s NJ Senate seat when Booker announced he was running for president.
The battle to win over voters is an uphill climb for an independent candidate. Larry discusses his background experiences and talks about the people who influenced him. His life long experiences gave him the skills he needed to mount a run for a major political position. But, the election challenges as an independent candidate were large.
