TheLibertarian Party of the United States was formed in Colorado Springs in the home of Luke Zell by a group of individuals led byDavid Nolan on December 11, 1971, after several months of debate among members of theCommittee to Form a Libertarian Party, founded July 17.[1] The formation was prompted in part byprice controls and the end of theGold Standard implemented by PresidentRichard Nixon. The Libertarian Party viewed the dominantRepublican andDemocratic parties as having diverged from what they viewed as thelibertarian principles of the AmericanFounding Fathers. This group includedJohn Hospers,Edward Crane, Manuel Klausner,Murray Rothbard,Roy Childs,D. Frank Robinson, andTheodora (Tonie) Nathan.[citation needed]
A press conference announcing the new party was held on January 31, 1972, at the party's headquarters inWestminster, Colorado. The first national convention, attracting 89 delegates from 23 states, was held that June in Denver, Colorado. According to Ron Crickenberger, former Political Director of the LP, a search of LP documents showed that the LP had elected Miguel Gilson-De Lemos in a partisan local board race in New York even before the adoption of its first platform.[citation needed] Several others were also elected or appointed that year. Party leaders initially doubted they would even see six people elected or appointed by 2001, so this led to early optimism among some. However, in subsequent years the number of people in office seemed to be about 1% of its donor base: approximately 30 officeholders with 3,000 donors in 1981; 100 in office and 10,000 donors in 1991; and 600 and 60,000 in 2001.[citation needed]
In 1971, seventy-five percent of members supported running a presidential ticket and sixty percent supported running candidates for lower offices. Members of the party supported giving its presidential nomination toMurray Rothbard,Alan Greenspan,Vivien Kellems,A. Ernest Fitzgerald,Martin Anderson,Phil Crane,Robert A. Heinlein,H. R. Gross,Milton Friedman,Sam Ervin,Henry Manne, orKarl Hess.[2] The party's name was selected by a vote of 111 to 87 in favor.[3]John Hospers won the presidential nomination for the1972 presidential election against James Bryan andTonie Nathan defeated Diana Amsden for the vice-presidential nomination.[4]
By the 1972 presidential election, the party had grown to over 80 members and had attainedballot access in two states. Their presidential ticket received between 3,000 and 4,000 votes, but received the first and onlyelectoral college vote for a Libertarian presidential ticket, fromRoger MacBride ofVirginia, who was pledged toRichard Nixon. His was also the first vote ever cast for a woman in theUnited States Electoral College. MacBride became the party's presidential nominee in the1976 presidential election. The 1976 election established the Libertarian Party as the number 1 alternative political party in the United States, and it remains the most successful alternative political party since the end of the Second World War.
In 1978,Dick Randolph became the first Libertarian to win state-level office with his election to theAlaska House of Representatives.[citation needed] Two years later, he won another term and Ken Fanning was also elected as a Libertarian to that chamber.
In the1980 presidential contest, the Libertarian Party gained ballot access in all 50 states,Washington, D.C., andGuam, the first time athird party accomplished this since theSocialist Party in 1916 (when there were only 48 states and the District of Columbia did not get to vote for president). The ticket ofEd Clark andDavid H. Koch spent several million dollars on thispolitical campaign and earned more than one percent of thepopular vote with almost one million votes.[5]
The party ran more candidates for seats in theUnited States House of Representatives than any other minor party since the1980 elections.[6]
On December 29, 1981, the first widely reported successful election in the continental United States of a Libertarian Party candidate in a partisan race occurred as Richard P. Siano, aBoeing 707 pilot forTrans World Airlines, running against both a Republican and a Democrat, was elected to the office ofKingwood Township Committeeman in westernHunterdon County,New Jersey. His election resulted from the special election held on December 29, 1981, to break a tie vote in the general election between him and the Democratic candidate. He received 63% of the votes cast in the special election. He served a three-year term of office.[7][8]
In 1984, the party's presidential nominee,David Bergland, gained access to the ballot in 36 states and earned one-quarter of one percent of the popular vote. In 1987, Doug Anderson became the first Libertarian elected to office in a major city, elected to the Denver Election Commission (later, in 2005, Anderson was elected to the Lakewood, Colorado city council).[9]
In1988, formerRepublican CongressmanRon Paul won the Libertarian nomination for president and was on the ballot in 46 states. Paul later successfully ran forUnited States House of Representatives from Texas, once again as a Republican, and held that office until 2013. He ran in the Republican primaries in 2008 and sponsored HR 1207 in the House of Representatives, a bill to audit the Federal Reserve.[10] His running mate was Andre Marrou, a former member of the Alaska legislature; the ticket was thus one of the few "third-party" tickets in American history to have former office-holders in both slots.
In 1992,Andre Marrou, a Libertarian elected to theAlaskastate legislature and Ron Paul'srunning mate in 1988, led theticket, with attorneyNancy Lord as hisvice presidential (VP) running mate. For the first time since theClark campaign in 1980, the Libertarian Party's presidential ticket made the ballot in all 50 states, DC, and Guam usually as independent candidates without party labelling. In 1994, radio personalityHoward Stern embarked on a political campaign forGovernor of New York, formally announcing his candidacy under the Libertarian Party ticket. Although he legally qualified for the office and campaigned for a time after his nomination, many viewed the run for office as nothing more than apublicity stunt. He subsequently withdrew his candidacy because he did not want to comply with the financial disclosure requirements for candidates.
Investment adviserHarry Browne headed the 1996 and 2000 presidential tickets. The VP candidate in 1996 wasSouth CarolinaentrepreneurJo Jorgensen; in 2000,Art Olivier ofCalifornia was Browne's running mate. In 1996 the Party's presidential candidate again made the ballot in all 50 states, often as an independent without Libertarian labellingWashington, D.C. andGuam. The party's presidential ticket again made the ballot in 49 states, D.C. and Guam in 2000, mostly without party labelling. Although the LP has had ballot access with party labelling in some states for an election or for a time, the LP has never had ballot access with party labelling in all fifty states.
In 2000, theArizona Libertarian Party, which had been disaffiliated from the national organization in late 1999, but which controlled the Libertarian ballot line in that state, nominated science fiction authorL. Neil Smith and newspaperman Vin Suprynowicz, rather than Browne and Olivier, as its presidential slate. Smith and Suprynowicz polled 5,775 votes (0.4%) in Arizona.
In the 2004 election cycle, the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination race was the closest to date. Three candidates – gun-rights activist and software engineerMichael Badnarik, talk radio hostGary Nolan, and Hollywood producerAaron Russo – came within two percent of each other on the first two ballots at the 2004national convention inAtlanta. Badnarik was chosen as the party's presidential nominee on the third ballot after Nolan was eliminated, a comeback many saw as surprising, as Badnarik had not been viewed as a front-runner for the nomination – many delegates were won over during the convention itself, due to Badnarik's perceived strong performance in a formal candidate debate. The Badnarik campaign secured ballot status in 48 states (plus D.C. and Guam) and earned 397,265 votes. Despite less name recognition and a much smaller campaign checkbook, Badnarik polled nearly as well as independent candidateRalph Nader. The Libertarian party also garnered more votes than the Green Party that year. His running mate was Richard Campagna who secured the vice presidential nod at the party's Atlanta convention with a landslide victory.
In the November 2006 mid-term election, the median vote percentage for Libertarians who ran for US House (excluding races with only one major party nominee) was 2.0%; while the median percentage for Greens who ran for that office (again excluding races with only one major party nominee) was 1.4%.[11] Over 13,400,000 votes were cast for Libertarian Party candidates in 2006.[12] In the2007 general elections, Libertarian Party candidates won 14 elective offices, including an election for mayor ofAvis, Pennsylvania.[13]
Severalcandidates sought to become the party's 2008 presidential nominee.Ron Paul, who had been the party's 1988 nominee and was seeking the 2008 Presidential nomination of the Republican Party, was mentioned as a possible nominee as well, but he officially denied any intent to run under a third-party banner. On December 12, 2007, the Party adopted a resolution requesting Paul to run on the Libertarian ticket if he did not win theRepublican Party nomination.[14]On March 25, 2008,Mike Gravel changed from theDemocratic Party to the Libertarian Party. On May 12, 2008, ten days before the2008 Libertarian National Convention,Bob Barr, a former employee for then CIA Director George W. Bush and later a Republican U.S. Congressman, announced that he would seek the nomination.[15]
At the time of the2008 Libertarian National Convention there were eight candidates for consideration at the convention:Bob Barr,Mike Gravel,Mike Jingozian,Steve Kubby,George Phillies,Wayne Allyn Root,Mary Ruwart, andChristine Smith. On May 25, after six ballots, the Libertarian Party chose Barr as their official nominee for president, and Root as his running mate.
Protests caused by theGreat Recession and theAffordable Care Act resulted in gains for both theLibertarian andRepublican parties in the2010 midterm elections. Calling themselves theTea Party movement (based on the originalBoston Tea Party),protesters desired a return to the government'sconstitutional limits, cuts in government spending and taxes, aBalanced Budget Amendment, and other economic policy reforms supported by the Libertarian Party. Though the Republicans successfully absorbed manyvoters from these protests as well, they would later lose popularity as the Libertarians continued to benefit into the2012 elections and held on to much of the support they had lost in the mid-2000s.
After initially running for the Republican nomination, formerGovernor of New MexicoGary Johnson announced his intention to seek that of the Libertarians. Johnson is known for his opposition to United States involvement in theAfghanistan,Iraq andLibyan wars and as a fiscal conservative who supports "slashing government spending". As governor, he cut taxes fourteen times and slashed the 10% annual growth in the New Mexican budget using his gubernatorial veto. He won the nomination over VirginianBill Still and TexanR. Lee Wrights. He came in third in the general election, receiving 1,275,821 popular votes (1.0%), the most votes of any Libertarian Party presidential candidate at the time.[citation needed]
At the Libertarian Party National Convention held inOrlando, Florida, on May 26–30, 2016, formerGovernor of New MexicoGary Johnson became the Libertarian Party candidate for president. His running mate was formerGovernor of MassachusettsBill Weld. They were on the ballot in all 50 states, including D.C.. Johnson became the Libertarians most popular president candidate, securing 4,489,233 total votes and 3.3% of the national vote.[16] Johnson's supporters heavily skewed young, with 70% of them being under 50, and many of them Republican-leaning and holding a bachelor's degree or higher; however, he was deeply unpopular with very conservative voters.[17] Johnson was particularly popular in Johnson's home state of New Mexico, earning 9.3% of the vote.[17]
Despite the success, Johnson's campaign is best remembered for hisgaffe on September 8, onMSNBC'sMorning Joe, he was asked by panelistMike Barnicle, "What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?" (referring to thewar-torn city of Aleppo in Syria). Johnson responded, "And what is Aleppo?"[18] When an "incredulous" Barnicle said "You're kidding... Aleppo is in Syria – it's the epicenter of the refugee crisis," Johnson responded by saying that "the only way that we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russia to diplomatically bring that at an end."[19] The gaffe seriously damaged Johnson's credibility in the eyes of the average voter, seeing his polling steeply drop from its peak of 13% of the national electorate.[18][20]
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At theLibertarian Party National Convention held from May 22 to May 24 online due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, activist and academicJo Jorgensen became the Libertarian Party candidate for president, becoming the first women to do so.[21][22] Jorgensen defeated Jacob Hornberger andVermin Supreme after four rounds of balloting, with activist and podcasterSpike Cohen winning the vice-presidential candidacy in three rounds beatingJohn Monds despite Jorgensen voicing support for Monds.[23][24] Jorgensen and Cohen achieved ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on September 15, 2020.[25] The pair received 1,865,535 total votes and 1.2% of the national vote, coming third in the nation, marking the second highest results for a Libertarian presidential candidate, but nearly half the total that Johnson had earned the previous cycle.
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At the Libertarian National Convention held from May 24 to May 27 inWashington D.C. candidate for the2022 Georgia Senate election,Chase Oliver, became the party's candidate for president, defeating the Mises Caucaus backedMichael Rectenwald after seven ballots.[26] Oliver voiced support for another candidate,Mike ter Maat, to be his running mate, who would be nominated after just two ballots.[27]
Party ChairwomanAngela McArdle stated that she endorsed Oliver as a vehicle for Donald Trump's victory, claiming Oliver would "pull two to one from Biden, as opposed to Trump."[28][29][30] However, theNew York Times reported in October 2024 that Democratic-linkeddark money groups were funding ads promoting Oliver, with the goal of eating intoDonald Trump's vote share.[31]
Four state Libertarian parties, inColorado,Montana,New Hampshire, andIdaho, publicly "denounced" Oliver's nomination.[32] In July 2024, it was announced the Libertarian Party of Colorado would placeRobert F. Kennedy Jr. as its presidential nominee, rather than Oliver, however, the party had already submitted the paperwork for Oliver to be named the candidate.[33][34] Additionally, McArdle and the national party attempted to form a "joint fundraiser" withRobert F. Kennedy Jr. which was heavily contested by the Party's National Secretary Caryn Ann Harlos, who opened an internal investigation by the party's judicial committee, arguing that McArdle was sabotaging the party's candidate and violated party by-laws.[35] The judicial committee found that McArdle hadn't violated any by-laws, but that the "joint fundraiser" was improper, and must be withdrawn from immediately.[36]
Oliver and ter Maat earned 637,251 votes, or 0.42% of the electorate, falling behind Kennedy who got 0.48% despite dropping out, and behind theGreen Party'sJill Stein who got 0.50%. This is the first time the Green party outperformed the Libertarians sinceRalph Nader's2000 bid for President.
1972:John Hospers andTonie Nathan – 3,674 popular votes (nil%); 1 electoral vote |
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