Seasoned Libertarian looks to November after seizing nomination to take on Biden and Trump

Libertarian presidential nominee Chase Oliver. Photo via Chase Oliver for President

Could Atlanta libertarian Chase Oliver become the second U.S. President from Georgia?

Probably not. In the past three presidential elections, Libertarian candidates only cracked 3% in Georgia once, in 2016, when Gary Johnson faced off against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Last time around, when the major party candidates were Trump and Joe Biden, the pair likely to appear on this year’s ballots, Libertarian Jo Jorgensen scored just over 62,000 votes out of nearly 5 million, or 1.25%.

But Oliver, 38, who won the nomination at the Libertarian Party Convention on Sunday after seven rounds of voting, could play a role in determining who takes Georgia’s 16 electoral votes.

“We don’t need even 3% of the votes sometimes to wreck their day right now because I did it with 2 .1% in Georgia, that was the largest and most expensive Senate race in history,” he said during a press conference at the convention before winning the nomination. “And let me tell you right now, that earned us the relevance we need to start putting our message forward.”

Oliver was referring to the Nov. 2022 election, when he ran against Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. Oliver’ 81,365 votes out of 3.9 million were enough to prevent Warnock or Walker from earning more than 50%, forcing a runoff the following month, which Warnock won.

Oliver has said he began his political career as a Democrat opposing the war in Iraq, joining the Libertarian Party after happening upon a Libertarian Party of Georgia booth at the Atlanta Pride Festival in 2010 and speaking with gubernatorial candidate John Monds.

The Libertarian Party emphasizes personal freedoms, attempting to court left-leaning voters with culturally liberal positions and right-leaning voters with fiscally conservative stands.

Oliver, who has described himself as “armed and gay,” supports the right to an abortion and the end to what he called the genocide in Gaza, as well as abolishing the Department of Education and requiring the Department of Defense to close overseas bases.

Neither major party candidate is particularly beloved by the American people at large. Polling site 538 ranks Biden’s approval rating at 39.6% and Trump’s at 41.5%.

Typically, libertarians draw votes from Republican candidates, said University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock, and if Oliver does better than he did in 2022, that could work to the Democrats’ benefit.

“It would give a place for a conservative who, for whatever reason, can’t bring him herself to vote for Donald Trump, something to do, because a number of those conservatives are never going to vote for someone like Joe Biden,” Bullock said. “I meet people like that all the time, and I’m sure you do too. So this would give them a way to express a preference for a candidate rather than just leaving the presidency blank on their ballot.”

But Kennesaw State University professor of political science and former Cobb County Republican Party Chair Jason Shepherd said he’s not worried and predicted Oliver will get the normal 1 to 3% of the vote.

“(Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) is a more troubling figure in the race because of his following and family name,” Shepherd said.

Kennedy, a former Democrat and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission Tuesday in an attempt to gain access to the CNN presidential debates in Atlanta June 27.

Kennedy, activist and scholar Cornel West, physician and perennial Green Party candidate Jill Stein and Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate Claudia De la Cruz have all said they expect to appear on ballots in Georgia.

With the election now less than half a year away, the Real Clear Politics polling average gives Trump a 4.8% lead over Biden in a two-way race in Georgia. When Kennedy, West and Stein are included, Trump’s advantage grows to 6%.

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