The Libertarian Party selected a former candidate for the Georgia Senate Chase Oliver as their presidential candidate on Sunday, echoing calls for support over the weekend from both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The selection of Oliver, who has described himself as “” and whose candidacy is a third-party candidate, came a day after Trump suggested he would be the party’s top nominee.
The former president was deemed ineligible for the nomination by the chairman of the Libertarian Party – Trump thought that, as the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, he could not have accepted the nomination anyway – while Kennedy was eliminated in the first round of voting and received only 19 votes. .
But even as they rejected him, Libertarian Party members feared that Kennedy’s candidacy could do significant damage to their party, which typically receives about 1 percent or less of the national vote share — with Gary Johnson in 2016 being a notable exception.
Many members of the Libertarian Party predicted that Kennedy — who is polling historically high for a third-party candidate — would cut back on the small share of protest votes that the party typically benefits from in presidential elections.
“We’re going to lose access to ballots in probably 22 states. We’re not going to make more than half a percent,” said Larry Sharpe, a longtime Libertarian Party member who lost his bid for vice president at the convention. “RFK is sucking the money out of the room and he’s getting the ‘I’m angry at the system votes’ that we used to get because we’re the only other guy on the ballot.”
While Libertarian Party delegates said they weren’t convinced by Trump or Kennedy, libertarians know members aren’t the only ones who account for their share of the vote. And most states require a certain percentage of votes to maintain access to ballots for the next election.
Oliver — who is affiliated with a more traditionalist faction of the Libertarian Party, the Classical Liberal Caucus — clinched the nomination after nearly eight hours and seven rounds of voting. He defeated a tougher Mises Caucus candidate by less than 1 percent in the penultimate round of voting, before delegates were asked to choose between Oliver and no candidate.
“Mises caucus versus everyone else is where we are,” said Adrian Malagon, the Mises-aligned chairman of the California Libertarian Party. “I think there needs to be a better understanding of what the mission will be in the future and a better organization is needed. I just don’t think it’s sustainable.”
Oliver is best known outside the party for his role in the Senate race in Georgia. He won just over 2 percent of the vote, forcing a runoff election between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Republican Hercshel Walker. In 2020, he ran for Congress in the state’s 5th District and also earned about 2 percent support.
As a presidential candidate, Oliver focused his pitch to the Libertarians on his efforts to build the party nationwide. He said he has made campaign stops in all 50 states and has 500 volunteers.
“I wanted to demonstrate to the delegates and to the voters that we have the drive and energy to push ourselves everywhere to grow the base of our party in every state,” Oliver said in an interview with POLITICO.
Oliver said his foray into politics came in the early 2000s as an anti-war protester, and he plans to target young voters angry about the war between Israel and Hamas on college campuses, Twitch and TikTok.
“We looked at which populations were most likely to be willing to step outside the two-party system, and we identified young people, and in particular those who are angry about the war going on in Gaza, angry about the immigration crisis and unrest about the cost of living,” Oliver said. “These are the young people we are going to focus on.”
Peder Schaefer contributed to this report.
