Last updated on July 17, 2025
The recent financial report from Bill Redpath include a graph of membership numbers. One graph is defective. It show a lower limit of 10,000 members,but the actual number of members is well below that, off the bottom of that graph. The other graph appears to show the “current” membership, as of the end of May. Printing the graph, and measuring on the graph with micrometer calipers, readily good to a tenth of a millimeter without pushing reading the vernier, an approximate end-of-May number is readily obtained.
The end of May number appears to be about 9430 members, a fall of 370 over the past month. That’s about twice the monthly decrease seen over the prior two months. We have 3267 life members, so about 6200 dues-paying members, meaning that we lost about 6% of the dues-paying members in one month.
[Addendum: The actual membership numbers have been posted. There were actually 9517 members, about one percent more than I had measured on the graph.
The financials also leave something to be desired for the future health of the party.
The Mises Caucus actually was growing the party a few years ago. What went wrong? A lot of people wanted instant gratification. They were not prepared for the long battle and the hard, and often boring and tedious work that politics requires, so they got frustrated and quit. I have seen this happen a lot over the 29 years I have been involved with this stuff.
A lot of people the Mises Caucus brought in were obsessed with the idea of a celebrity (in their eyes) candidate, like Andrew Napolitano or Dave Smith or Tom Woods or Rand Paul or Tom Massie. The Mises Caucus actually almost did get Andrew Napolitano and/or Dave Smith to run for the presidential nomination, and if either had gone through with it instead of backing out the Libertarian Party would be in far better shape right now. When Michael Rectenwald ended up being the endorsed candidate for the LP’s presidential nomination a lot of Mises Caucus people were disappointed, not because they disliked Rectenwald, but rather because they did not see him as a big enough star. This led to more people giving up and quitting or not even trying to become convention delegates. More quit after Chase Oliver won the presidential nomination.
Another factor is burn out from those who were active in the Mises Caucus. Some of their most active members scaled back their involvement or even went inactive. This includes Mises Caucus founder and former Chairman, Michael Heise. He got married and had a child. He has been focusing on his family and has not really been very involved in the Mises Caucus for awhile.
Nonsense.
LP membership and revenue stated to decline as soon after MC took control of LNC at Reno.
The Mises Caucus takeover was/is a complete failure….done by incompetent individuals.
I am talking about BEFORE the 2022 Libertarian National Convention and leading up to that convention. The reason the Mises Caucus won at that convention is because the Mises Caucus was in fact growing the party. A lot of the people who quit after that were not Mises Caucus, but then Mises Caucus members started dropping off as well due to the reasons I mentioned above.
History lesson….
Dave Smith, Mike Heise and their Mises Caucus cohorts were all adamant that membership and revenue would increase exponentially after they “took over” the Libertarian Party.
I remember Dave Smith on his show claiming LP will have 100k sustaining members within a year after Reno.
Again, membership and revenue both declined after Reno, not increased.
This is not the first time that people in the LP claimed that they would bring in lots of new party members and money and fall short or not deliver at all. I have seen in happen multiple times over the last 29 years in which I have been involved with this stuff.
MC got a few hundred folks to pay their dues last year in May so they could attend the convention. Just like in 2022 almost none renewed their memberships. Expect a similar few hundred “bump” next year in May. Added to that – there was zero election year bump.
The issues surrounding renewals (or lack thereof) continue. The new Project Archimedes will not succeed in the same manner that the last one only succeeded because the LP allowed itself to go $400K in debt. You can “buy” all the new members you want – but prospecting always looses money. Going almost 100% “on-line” for both prospecting & renewals has not been successful since 2022 when the LNC shifted strategy from a profitable direct mail approach to an unprofitable all on-line approach. The old direct mail approach – combined with complimentary supporting on-line efforts – had a 7-1 ROI on renewals & about a 3-1 ROI on house letters.
This is why social media needs to be integral part of development for a membership based organization like the LP. “Cute” memes do not bring in money.
I agree the LP needs a good direct mail effort, a good social media effort, an effort to get out regular media releases to the media people, a group to write letters to the editor regularly, and some decent summaries of 250 words on issues that help people understand what the LP is promoting. I personally, would work on issues that are barriers to prosperity. Having done much of this myself I don’t think I am asking to much. It just needs some commitment.
Also…
Many donors left because of LPNH’s racist, homophobic and anti-semitic messaging.
The majority of membership don’t want to be associated with an organization that allows this type of messaging. It’s irrelevant the messaging is coming from one state affiliate. People outside the Libertarian Party see “Libertarian” and then associate these views with all Libertarians.
Most members don’t agree and/or want to be associated with the type of rhetoric coming from LPNH.
When Mr. Redpath recently proposed a motion to deal with the LPNH issue, the LNC voted to not even debate the motion. Having the LNC on record condemning the type of rhetoric coming from LPNH would be the 1st step in attempting to get these members and donors back.
Unfortunately, the current LNC is incompetent to deal with the issues driving membership away.
PS
And there is also the issue of LPNH violating the by-laws.
Article 5.4
According to Mr. Redpath, “as we are now past the time of JFC revenue, without an increase in LNC revenue, we will be running at about $15,000 in the hole per month for the foreseeable future”.
Obviously this is not sustainable.
The JFC just delayed the inevitable….the steep continuous decline in membership and revenue since Reno, ~50% of membership, is explicit evidence the LP Mises Caucus “takeover” was a failure and may lead to the bankruptcy of the LNC/LP.
Sadly, in the state I reside in currently, one can’t be a member of the state party without either being a National member or jumping through hoops concerning the number of county or affiliate meetings attended and whether the county or affiliate has officially “certified” me to be a “non-national-state member”. It’s all subjective and if you’re out of favor (as I am in this state as they refused to recognize Chase as the Presidential candidate because he was [gasp] homosexual), they can just refuse to “certify” you.
As I resigned my National membership immediately after the Mises coup, I’m definitely still out of favor in this state. I may just have to move north!!!
Name the state affiliate
I attempted to answer but my response was not published. As I do not intend to remain in this state, it’s irrelevant in the long term.
That said, I wonder if anyone might have some sort of database or spreadsheet indicating which state orgs are MC-controlled and which are not.