Last updated on May 22, 2024
Your mileage may vary. These are my opinions, with some supporting numbers.
There are basic operations that every political party committee needs to perform: Fundraising. Membership Recruitment. Outreach. Candidate Recruitment and Training.
The Mises Regime controlling the Libertarian National Committee promised us a change. The Reno Reset. There was change. Now they have a record. A record of incompetence.
Fundraising:
For the prior Presidential Election Year, 2020, the LNC raised $2,316,236.27 (FEC end of year report)
For the current year, projected income is barely above $1 million. [Addendum: The National Treasurer proposes the final total will be 1.5 million.]
That’s more than a 50% drop from the last Presidential cycle.
For the last Federal election year, 2022, the LNC raised $2,076,812.67
For the current year, projected income is barely above $1 million.
That’s close to a 50% drop.
Where has all the money gone? For starters, the LNC substantially ended its direct mail fundraising. Direct mail is, of course, the core of political fundraising methods.
The most valuable asset of the party, the Headquarters Building, has gone to waste. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now its roof leaks, and the LNC can’t be bothered to have it fixed.
(Projected) annual income is the lowest that it has been in the past 20 years.
That’s a record of incompetence in fundraising.
The National Treasurer proposes that I should have compared over two year intervals, because the Mises Caucus was not in power in 2020-2022. Let us try this:
2024 1500000 <— claims treasurer
DOWN 28% from 2022. (in other cycles, the average was +70% or so over the matching two years.)
2022 2076812.67
-10% Down from 2020…less than the corresponding drop in 2018
2020 2316236.27
+31% Convention year UP from 2018
2018 1771031.63
-23% Down from 2016
2016 2668940.43
+83% Convention year UP from 2014
2014
Membership:
Going back to the Summer of 2020, we had 19,639 members, of whom 2825 were life members and 16,814 paid their yearly dues.
This month, we have 12,211 members, of whom 3,255 are life members and 8956 are yearly dues-paying members.
That’s a 1/3 drop in total membership and close to a 50% drop in dues-paying membership.
Members are your main money source. They are going away, so fundraising has fallen a great deal.
That’s a record of incompetence in membership recruitment and retention.
Outreach:
The DC Headquarters building has been shuttered. The competent, professional outreach staff of 2020 has departed or been let go. We did participate in a Washington AntiWar rally. Indeed, there was our National Chair, and waving behind her was the flag of the Russian fascist dictatorship of Mr. Putin and his kleptocratic friends. That’s not a Libertarian message.
We raised money for a billboard campaign against several Senators. No evidence that any billboards went up has been presented.
What about internal outreach to members? Direct mail largely stopped. LP News ceased to be published. Posts on X.com, allegedly from LPNational, were often embarrassing, though less embarrassing than posts from Mises-run LP-New Hampshire.
That’s a record of incompetence in outreach.
Candidate Recruitment and Training:
The longer-term Candidate Recruitment and Training Director went on her way. Soon thereafter, she was greeted with claims that we had never before done candidate training, but would now start.
Cara Schulz observes: Remember in 2022 when we had the Day of Education with 12 very job specific education tracks, 42 different classes, 28 different presenters, and over 300 attendees and it was FREE to attendees?
This LNC killed it.
Now we have 4 classes and attendees pay to attend.
That’s a record of incompetence in candidate support.
Then there are affiliate relations. Several affiliates have disaffiliated. One is being sued. I could go on.
This article would have been stronger had you been truthful and not tried to twist the numbers. There have been failures, but I must address the inaccuracies here:
Fundraising
Fundraising dropped 10% between 2020 and 2022
In 2024, we are not “projected to make less than $1M. That is a straight line run rate, ignoring what has already been announced as one of the best conventions on record. We will hit $1M around the middle of the year and end up at $1.5M even with no fundraising rebound after convention (which we usually get every convention year, but specifically in a presidential year). Odds are that we will be down 15-25% vs 2022. Still not good at all, and you could have written an honest article about it, but it’s not the 50% you claim.
Second, you claim that the MC caused a 1/3 drop in total membership since 2020, while completely ignoring that the “takeover” happened in the middle of 2022. This was after 40% of that drop had already taken place. The party was already in a membership free fall when this LNC took over. What is true, and would have been an accurate story, is that we failed to stop the free fall and even accelerated it due to the botched civil migration.
Last, I will just say that it is very easy to mention things like fewer candidate recruitment classes and say things like “this LNC killed it”. In reality, the previous LNC made over $2M in revenue, lost massive amounts of members, and had to mortgage the building because they overspent the budget in order to pay for their extravagant plans. This LNC did not sign us up for the most expensive convention city in the history of the Libertarian Party, we were saddled with it. Executing the same plan as we did in Reno would have likely cost 5-6 figures more in DC. You can knock this LNC for spending within our means, if you want, but this is what good cash management looks like. What you cited in 2022 is what bad cash management looks like.
According to the revised membership data, the typical post-presidential slide had ended in late 2021, which is the normal time for it to end (roughly a year after the presidential election all of the people who donated just for that election with no intention of renewing have been rolled off the count.) Membership was stable for the year between the end of November, 2021 (17,325) and the end of November, 2022 (17,305). The range for that period was 17,302 +/- 381.
There has been a pattern in recent cycles of a membership peak in July or August of the midterm year followed by a dip of variable magnitude and duration leading into the presidential cycle. This recent peak was in July of the midterm year, as normal. The previous three dips (using active membership and beginning in Aug 2018, July 2014, and July 2010) lasted 11, 18, and 23 months. We are currently on month 21. The previous three dips had drawdowns of 8.7%, 21.6%, and 17.1%. We are currently down 30.9%.
It would not surprise me if the bottom is in. But, that is a much bigger hole than normal. Yes, some of it can be blamed on the civi migration. But, not all.
Signature membership growth averaged 675/month in 2020, 885/month in 2016, 421/month in 2012, and 440/month in 2008, according to the unrevised, old method. The revised numbers bump 2020 up to 1,462/month, but I suspect there is some double counting going on there. You know what we’ve averaged for the first four months of 2024? 86/month. That isn’t just the lowest presidential year signature member growth. That is by far the lowest average monthly growth of any year for as far back as data is publicly available (2005), excluding April 2017 and January 2018, when there were large list purges of deceased people.
Voter registrations are perfectly flat since Oct/Nov 2022. That will probably pick up a bit over the next 6 months, but it isn’t going to be anywhere near the 15% – 25% biennial growth that had become common pre-Mises. Mid to high single digit growth is the best we can hope for at this point and low single digit growth is a possibility.
The vast majority of people who register to vote as Libertarian don’t read the LNC business list. They don’t know this site exists. They’ve never heard of Nick Sarwark. They might register L after being exposed to the LP on social media, though. If that is the case, the messaging isn’t resonating well with the public.