Mapstead and ter Maat lead.
These numbers are from the FEC, the most recent report deadline being late March covering spending through February. As may be seen, the candidates fall into three groups by amount of money raised. There are apparently other candidates who have not yet raised any money.
Lars Mapstead $538,703.62
Michael ter Maat $206,416.71
Chase Oliver $68,284.05
Jacob Hornberger $54,388.36
Michael Rectenwald $38,917.22
Charles Ballay $18,873.69
Joshua Smith $13,634.48
Robert Sansone $ 3,770.72
The “Total individual contributions” line is a better indicator of support than the “Total Receipts” line. The “Total individual contributions” line does not include candidate contributions, loans, or other committee support. That line, with an extra month of reporting reads:
$72,352.75 Chase Oliver
$64,729.00 Jacob Hornberger
$50,741.00 Michael Rectenwald
$17,541.96 Michael ter Maat
$17,392.34 Joshua Smith
$16,599.91 Lars Mapstead
$4,244.00 Charles Ballay
$0.00 Robert Sansone
Gimmick? Just the act of running an LP candidate is considered by many to be a gimmick! The point I made was that Stein and West are getting named and put in polls while an LP candidate is absent until June. The big benefit to nominating early is that the candidate has more time to unify the LP, build a campaign organization and raise more money and can hope for more publicity when attending state conventions in presidential years as THE candidate not a seeker. What are the “cons” other than having an attractive sore loser from major party decide not to seek the nomination? Even then, there could be options to substitute should such a big name decide he or she would like the nomination.
Should the Party still exist in 2028, the LNC might want to consider holding the presidential nominating convention in 2027. The last several columns, and polls, I saw that mentioned “third parties” (as a danger to Biden or Trump) didn’t even mention the LP. RFK, Jr., West, and Stein are mentioned over and over again. LP missed the boat and, given that the LP candidate won’t win no matter whom the GOP and Dems nominate, it makes strategic sense to get the best LP candidate out there as soon as possible building state campaign committees, petitioning, fund raising, and getting whatever “third party spoiler” media attention is available. Sure, it is a longer campaign season, but if you are into “doing politics to get the message out there” isn’t that just what you want?
In the same vein… why does the party need the HQ to be in the DC area? Why does the party feel the need to nominate a national ticket at approximately the same time as the two dominant parties? At one time the thinking was that by behaving like the other two parties the media would take the LP more seriously. I don’t believe that has proven to be anywhere near true. I agree that the party should seriously reconsider having the nominating convention in the year prior to the presidential election for all the reasons you have cited.
The Enemedia is under strict orders from their bosses to black out the LP or avoid mentioning it as much as possible, except in a derogatory fashion. This has been the case since at least 2018.
Yes, the LP President/Vice-President nominations should be done in the fall prior, if for the simplest reason of optimizing time on the campaign trail. It may not mean much in terms of PR or media coverage, and it would make conventions different, but overall those are good things.
There is no media conspiracy to black out the LP. The media will cover any well known independent candidate, of which the LP has zero in this election. RFK Jr and Cornell West are simply more well known than Michael Rectenwald, Joshua Smith, and every other LP candidate. Had Amash thrown his hat in, he would be given coverage.
There is no benefit in nominating a candidate in the year prior, and some detriment. The reason there is no benefit is that almost all of the people paying attention to presidential politics are people active in one or the other of the major parties, and are committed to a candidate running in their primaries. You can’t talk to people who aren’t listening. And the reason it may be detrimental is that it locks out potential higher profile, late arrivals. The party would be committed to the best of the D-tier candidates, simply because they entered the race early, when there might be a B-tier candidate potentially interested in running, but waiting on some development.
There is a way to signal to donors and the media who the likely Presidential nominee will be a few months earlier, though.
Allow 50% of the national convention votes for the presidential candidate to come from the delegates to the national convention and the other 50% to come from state or county party held primaries (not government run primaries) allocated proportionally to candidates by the number of votes. There would have to be a requirement to be a pledge signed party member for at least a year prior to the state/county primary and the state or local parties could charge $25 to vote. That would do three things: increase participation in the LP presidential selection process by rank and file libertarians, serves as a fundraiser for state and local parties, and provide some clarity as to the leading candidate earlier in the process. It also preserves a lot of power with the national delegates to ensure things don’t go too far off course. Requiring at least a year old signature membership helps prevent people from other parties who failed at their nomination from taking the LP’. It might also encourage the formation of more county level parties, if only so that people can vote for President at them.
But, that would require amending the national party bylaws and would require the national delegates to voluntarily give up power, so not going to happen.
False, and I say that as a candidate who has run 3x, and experienced the blackout personally in my last run in 2018. Hell, the local newspaper, who definitely knew who I was, endorsed my opponent and never even had the courtesy to talk to me at all, even though I was the one who actually showed up at candidate events.
So don’t tell me it doesn’t exist. I lived it! And so have other LP candidates. It’s been going on for almost a decade.
The fact that you, personally, were not taken seriously by the media is not evidence that the media will not report on or endorse Libertarian candidates when THEY feel it is warranted. Years ago, when I still contributed to LPEDIA, I kept track of as many endorsements of Libertarians that I could find. The last year I searched was 2018. There were 40 endorsements of Libertarian candidates that year, that I found. I found 43 in 2016. Some of those came from very large newspapers for significant offices.
The Houston Chronicle, then the 3rd largest newspaper in the country, endorsed Mark Miller for Railroad Commission in Texas in 2016. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the San Antonio Express-News, The Dallas Morning News, and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times also endorsed Miller.
The Boston Globe endorsed Dan Fishman for state Auditor in 2018, as did the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.
The Chicago Tribune, then the 10th largest newspaper in the country, endorsed Gary Johnson for President in 2016, as did North Carolina’s Winston-Salem Journal and several other newspapers.
Except, Jim, for those pesky facts that elude you, which is that the regional newspapers and media were 100% SILENT on ALL LP candidates. Not just me. ALL of Colorado. The entire state.
And BTW, I did 31% in that race. Think I wasn’t serious? I put in the campaign. My opponent ran and hid. I’m damned proud of that showing.
And notice that nationally the words “Libertarian Party” are nonexistent when any national media mentions third parties. It’s always “No Labels” and “Greens” and the leftists. Ask yourself why.
The LP nominated the year prior from 1979 to 1991. It was not beneficial. In particular, in 1980 Ed Clark was still overshadowed by John Anderson. The idea of nominating the year prior is yet another silver bullet idea that sounds good to a lot of people but fails to account for the fact that voters are similar to a person looking to buy a big-ticket item like a car or a house, very few people can be pushed to commit or even show more than mild interest until they are ready. Most voters that aren’t already committed and unshakeable aren’t going to be ready to commit until months if not weeks before the election. Part of what helped Gary Johnson in 2016 was a vigorous nomination race with a limited number of clearly differentiated choices with him, Petersen, and McAfee. Getting out of the current schedule doesn’t increase the opportunity to reach the general public in any significant way, it only locks in a nominee so that there is no opportunity to respond to changes in the political climate or have the possibility of an otherwise unexpected nominee to emerge, not to mention the self-marginalization aspect of being out of step with what voters expect.
In short, instead of trying gimmicks we need to just get better at reaching large numbers of voters at the time they are most interested in shopping the market for a candidate.