LP Executive Direct Hannah Kennedy reports through the LNC Public List that data cleanup is still under way. She urges reading the financial reports for a more accurate impression of how LP National Membership is doing. Good news!: When cleanup is done, we will have accurate membership numbers starting from when we began using CiviCRM.
However, we do have indicative numbers. A month ago, membership appeared to be 11,679. This month, membership appeared to be 10,731. The difference between these two numbers cannot be assumed to be simply a change in the number of members, because duplicates have been eliminated (and many other things) form one number but not the other. However, a drop of 940 tends to suggest that membership is falling, a suggestion that tends to be confirmed by FEC financial reports.
The number of life members increased by 17, or so, bringing us to 3,286 or so life members.
First comment of the new year and I predict if Angela stays Chair then at the end of the next 365 days LP membership will be about 7-8 thousand
This is the only presidential campaign in LP history that did not result in increased dues paying membership. The LP’s presidential ticket simply failed to attract new party members, and this all can’t be blamed on the LNC because historically most people who join the LP join because of candidate, usually for President, not because of the LNC.
The job of the presidential candidate is to get supporters and voters. It is the LNCs job to recruit these supporters into members. Given the open hostility of the LNC to the convention selected presidential candidate this was unlikely to happen. Yes Angels and most of the LNC deserve the blame for their “failure”.
Failure is in quotation marks because, I believe that was Angela’s plan all along.
Most people do not pay attention to a political party’s national committee. Most people pay attention to candidates. The average new party member does not know who is on the LNC or what they are doing.
We are not talking most people. We are talking about people who actively fund the party. These people are much more likely to follow the antics of the LNC.
The way National treated Chase, I’m not surprised. Why would you want to attract new party members to a party structure that by and large was opposed to your candidacy?
Most people pay no attention to a political party’s national committee. When I joined the LP in 1996 I joined because of the Harry Browne for President campaign, not the LNC. I had no idea who was on the LNC or what they were doing when I joined.
Membership always goes down after a presidential election year, regardless of who is the Chair.
But only Angela could loose membership for 2 years leading into a presidential cycle
Cite? After Ron Paul ’88 campaign, membership increased almost 50 percent as LNC worked with Paul campaign to convert his supporters into members.
I don’t have “cites,” but if you must go back to 1988 to find a year where membership increased in the year after a presidential run, that tends to prove my point.
Membership does not go down this quickly after a presidential xampaign. It is usually several months out. This is the first time in LP history that dues paying membership went down durimg the campaign.
No doubt related to Angela’s ignorant and sophomoric strategy to support the LP candidate only in blue states… the strategy being to help Trump win.
Membership decline started long before Chase Oliver was nominated by the convention delegates in 2024 and has been on a downward trend since Angela was appointed by Mike Heise in Reno.
Back in the day – as i understand it from reading various staff reports & such – the crm had a process that noted dups for staff to review & merge. In addition there were a few volunteers who were doing this on their state side. But there were very few folks who were dups that had paid $25 more than once during the year (that would be “members”). So unless there are so many people donating to the LP (which according to the financials are less & less) – & those multiple people keep using a different email or address – then there should be very few dup paid members. The prior RE system also had an auto report for finding & merging dups. This tool is avail on almost every crm system I’ve seen. There certainly would not be so many new paid member dups – unless the LNC was flooded with cash – that this would effect the membership report in any significant way.
Some of that is data issues, I seriously doubt there were 17 new life members last month when the previous months were 1. I bet that is catching life members missed in the prior to, so like 20 over 3 or 4 months. They likely just caught ones that made cumulative payments and missed before. The 10% drop is likely high as well and not that much though November is a high drop off month as people who joined for delegate counts in 2023 drop. November right after convention usually is higher than normal drop off.
17 new life members = $25,500 plus – so sure that would show on the financials. Based on that you would expect at least $100K++++ in revenue yes? I guess we shall see….. Oh wait – at least from the last FEC Report it was more like $89K – and if you look at itemized – where a $1.5K donation would fall – you would be at um zero above $1500. So one must assume all 17 new lifers were from 11/26-11/30. Wow nice little bit of new cash if you can get it!
Not – what I am thinking is they “gave” life memberships to people who donated to the JFC. These are NOT folks who gave directly to the LP. Not folks who signed the NAP. Thus, not folks who deserve “memberships” in the party unless the delegates at a convention specifically give them Honorary life Memberships. In fact I bet most of the folks would be upset IF they receive an LP Life Membership card in the mail.