I agree with the Libertarian Party about a lot of things, and I keep waiting for the party to say them to more than a rounding error of voters.
The scorecard is ugly. Gary Johnson pulled about 4.49 million votes in 2016, or 3.28 percent, which is the best showing the party has ever had. Jo Jorgensen got about 1.87 million in 2020. Chase Oliver got roughly 650,000 in 2024, or 0.42 percent, and finished fifth. That’s a drop of about 85 percent from the high-water mark in two elections.
A lot happened in between. The Mises Caucus took over party leadership in 2022. In May 2024 Donald Trump showed up to speak at the national convention, got booed by plenty of the delegates, and left without the endorsement he’d asked for. Then they nominated Oliver. I can’t tell you that any of that was a strategy.
Here’s the number that bugs me most, though. After 2024, the Libertarian Party of Georgia, which is Oliver’s home state party, lost its automatic spot on the ballot. To get it back it needed 72,679 signatures collected in person by mid-July of this year. According to WABE, it turned in a few hundred and gave up. Libertarians in Georgia can still run as write-ins, which is a polite way of saying they can’t really run.
Look, the deck is stacked, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. States write ballot-access rules to protect the people already on the ballot, and the debate commission has long wanted a candidate polling at 15 percent before it will hand over a podium. It’s the same trick that keeps Tesla from selling you a car in North Dakota: incumbents write the rules, then point at the rules. But a party that can’t collect signatures in the state where its own nominee lives doesn’t get to blame the referee for everything.
The fix is boring, and that’s why nobody wants it. Win something small first. Indiana Libertarians managed 11.4 percent for governor in 2020 with Donald Rainwater, and the Indiana party’s chair says nine Libertarians currently hold elected office in that state. That’s what progress looks like. A running tally I found puts the whole country at about 150 Libertarian officeholders, which is not a lot for a movement that’s been at this since 1971.
The 2028 convention is set for El Paso. Jorgensen said in May she’s forming an exploratory committee, and Afroman told Reason’s podcast in April he’d consider running. Fine. Neither is a governing record. Pick a former mayor or a former governor, someone who has actually balanced a budget and can survive a debate question that isn’t about weed.
Then do the paperwork in 2027, when nobody is watching, and get on every ballot early. If the party hasn’t done that by the time the convention opens, it’s a hobby with a website.
My two cents: good ideas deserve a party that can at least gather signatures.