The Libertarian Party vs. Chase Oliver

The L.P.'s presidential ticket finds itself fighting state parties and a national chair.

In May, the Libertarian Party (L.P.) nominated Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat as its presidential and vice presidential candidates. Oliver is most famous for his presence on the ballot as a Libertarian Senate candidate in Georgia, where he earned more than 2 percent of the vote and sent the 2022 Senate race to a runoff that the Democrats won. Ter Maat, unusual for a libertarian, is a former cop.

Before the end of June, two state affiliate parties vowed they would not submit Oliver and ter Maat's names to appear on their state ballots. One state, Colorado, announced in early July that it would instead nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This week the secretary of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC), Caryn Ann Harlos, used her legal authority as national secretary to submit the Oliver/ter Maat ticket to Colorado's secretary of state office anyway. The LNC is the governing body of the national party. Harlos is herself a member of the Colorado L.P. but strongly objected to the Kennedy nomination. The Oliver campaign also this week submitted a necessary slate of electors to the state.

How this will play out in November is uncertain. The Colorado L.P. still intends to file to get Kennedy on the ballot as a Libertarian, though it is likely his campaign will submit enough signatures by the deadline today to achieve that without the L.P.'s help. Colorado secretary of state spokesperson Jack Todd told The Denver Post that dueling filings from the same party is something the state has never had to deal with before.

Montana's Libertarian Party also announced in early June that it would not put Oliver on its state's ballot and encouraged other states to follow suit. The Montana L.P. asked the national party to "consider suspending and replacing him." At publication time, Montana's party chair had not responded to an email asking if his party intended to submit a different name or leave Montanans no L.P. presidential ticket to vote for.

Another state L.P., Idaho, saw its secretary, Matt Loesby, publish an open letter in mid-June calling on the LNC to rescind Oliver's nomination, mostly because of his position on transgender care for minors. Idaho's official state party account retweeted Loesby, though according to an email from Loesby last week, the party has made no formal decision to keep the Oliver ticket off its ballot. (New Hampshire's L.P. also rejects Oliver, but he can get himself on that state's ballot without its cooperation.)

The Oliver campaign is in a peculiar position for a presidential nominee, fighting a two-front war against some state L.P.s, leading elements of the national party, and apparently some aggrieved delegates who hired a lawyer. One front is arguing that Oliver ought not be the L.P.'s national standard bearer, and one is arguing that he already legally is not, due to alleged irregularities in the delegate seating process at the May nominating convention in Washington, D.C.

The first case is summed up in the bill of grievances from Colorado and Idaho's Loesby's open letter. Colorado takes issue with Oliver making the personal choice to wear a mask during COVID-19, insufficiently defending his opponent Donald Trump from accusations made against him, and being arguably more consistently libertarian than it is on minors' right to make choices about their medical care in alliance with parents and doctors.

Asked if anything might make him reconsider his opposition to Oliver, Idaho's Loesby said in an email that "if Chase Oliver were to publicly recant his position regarding so-called 'Puberty Blockers,' and recognize them as child sexual abuse, I would reconsider my opposition to the ticket."

Trans issues are the flash point for many of Oliver's most vocal opponents. Oliver is against state action in an area where his opponents insist state action is morally required to prevent the child abuse they believe is inherent in allowing parents, doctors, and minors to make decisions about chemical or surgical gender-change interventions without state interference. Oliver sticks firmly to the libertarian idea that the state should not interfere with the decisions a parent, child, and doctor make about appropriate or desired care. (Oliver is asked about the "transing kids" stuff far more than he brings it up on his own; when the issue is brought up, he routinely stresses the small number of children and families affected by this issue.)

The second case—that Oliver isn't legally the candidate—is expressed in detail in a letter sent on June 19 to the LNC from lawyer Carl A. Anderson of the D.C.-based law firm Rock Spring Law Group. Among the assertions in that letter, which threatens but does not announce an actual lawsuit (or actual plaintiffs), is that five state delegations at the May nominating convention had delegates whose placement was done in violation of the lawyer's interpretation of either D.C. law or L.P. bylaws. (Anderson has not responded to requests for comment.)

The LNC had private executive session meetings this week that discussed "potential litigation," which might have been related to this letter, although the L.P.'s national communications director declined to comment on anything related to Anderson's letter. That letter states outright that "ineligible votes did not explicitly enough [sic] to change the outcome of the election for the presidential nomination" but that "the addition of illegal votes may have made Chase Oliver's support appear stronger than what it actually was influencing the outcome in other ways."

Angela McArdle, in her second term as the chair of the LNC and from the Mises Caucus faction that did not want Oliver to win, is a major public voice for the party. Oliver's victory was hard-fought and narrow, only beating "none of the above" with 60 percent on a seventh ballot. On various podcasts and videos posted to her X account since Oliver got the nomination, McArdle has made it clear her goal for the L.P. this year is to ensure that Trump wins the presidency. She said in her endorsement video, "I endorse Chase Oliver as the best way to beat Joe Biden," while talking up promises Trump made to commute Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's sentence and put a libertarian in his cabinet. A party pamphlet being given out at FreedomFest this week contains two paragraphs of praise for Trump before mentioning Oliver; the thought behind this strategy is that by leveraging Libertarian voters' power strategically, it can ensure that a major party candidate wins who will, its proponents believe, achieve significant libertarian, if not Libertarian, goals.

More subtle aversions to Oliver beyond explicit policy commitments are apparent in a video about "moral courage" from McArdle. The implied allegation in that video is that Oliver is insufficiently red-pilled—too normie, too willing to accept what McArdle calls "mainstream narratives" (such as that, say, COVID-19 could be deadly and some precautions might prevent its spread, or that Trump may have committed some crimes and that him being tried for them might be justified). In some libertarian-ish circles these days, the rejection of mainstream narratives is seen as equally or perhaps more important than having a libertarian vision of the role of the state, with the affection for Kennedy the most telling sign of this attitude.

Currently, the LNC is considering forming a joint fundraising committee with Kennedy, who certainly opposes mainstream narratives on vaccines, though he is far from espousing consistent libertarian policy positions. Harlos has been upbraided publicly on the LNC's business email list by McArdle for daring to place the L.P.'s nominee on her state's ballot rather than Kennedy. The LNC is currently voting on a motion to ensure it files all necessary nominating paperwork for Oliver with state election officials. So far at least six members of the LNC have voted against this.

For his part, Oliver has been out on the road conducting an ordinary presidential campaign, including public appearances, media spots, and advertising. His X feed is full of hits on debt, gun control, bodily integrity, and presidential legal immunity. He stresses his youth—he's 38—compared to his doddering major party opponents. His real-time replies on X to the Biden/Trump debate focused on the roles of both men in inflation and rising debt. He called for medical choice for veterans, more immigration and nuclear energy, reduced tariffs, and less American support of foreign wars. He advocated a way out of Social Security to give Americans greater control over their finances and offered a general snarky contempt for the delivery and records of both men.

Oliver is unfortunately barely being included in any polls, but one post-debate poll from Suffolk University/USA Today had him at 1.4 percent, ahead of other third-party candidates Jill Stein (1 percent) and Cornel West (1.3 percent).

Dustin Nanna, chair of the LNC's ballot access committee, said in a phone interview in late June that they are locked in 36 states and have ongoing ballot access efforts, some funded by the party and some all-volunteer, in the others. "The goal from the LNC should always be to do whatever we can to ensure ballot access in as many states as possible, and I do believe in our capacity to get on" the remaining states, with the exception of New York, which since the last election raised its access standards for third parties to near-impossible levels.

This much opposition within the L.P. to its nominee is "highly unusual," said Oliver's campaign manager Steve Dasbach, himself a former LNC chair, in a phone interview in late June. "Had a different candidate been the nominee and states taken actions about not putting them on their ballot, I think we'd see stronger reactions from the LNC." Dasbach thinks moves against Oliver's access are "not in the best interests of the Party as a whole, and not in the best interest of registered Libertarians in those states."

To Dasbach, Oliver's position on trans issues is "straight out of the party platform" with its support for medical freedom for individuals and for parental rights against state interference. Dasbach also has found some Libertarians erroneously believe Oliver supported mask or vaccine mandates merely because he personally chose to wear a mask or socially distance in some circumstances.

"We are working with the LNC and we are confident we'll ultimately be able to work these issues out and Chase will appear on the ballot in all states where the L.P. is qualified," Dasbach says. "It's just a matter of Chase and Mike and our campaign working with the LNC and those state parties to address their concerns."

"We are not attempting to tilt the election one way or the other," Dasbach says. "We are seeking people fed up with the choice between Biden and Trump irrespective of whether they lean left or right."