Last week I sat through most of the February 1 LNC meeting, covering it for Third Party Watch.
Our national party is in serious trouble.
Financial? The LNC has a substantial structural deficit, with expenditures considerably larger than income. Acording to the FEC filings, December 2025’s revenue decreased to $58,931. There was also $1900 in bank interest. December Expenses totaled $75,176. In round numbers, the LNC’s books showed a gap of -$14,000. LNC debts increased to $38,458, having been much closer to zero a few months earlier. [There is another financial report circulating with even worse numbers.]
Membership? In December, the national party lost another 206 dues-paying members. The count of dues-paying members (Sustaining members who are not life members) is now below 5800.
And what did the LNC do during its meeting? It had a nice report on the forthcoming National Convention. It spent the rest of its time debating pointless policy resolutions, a majority of which did not receive the needed vote, so that their discussion accomplished nothing.
In the face of catastrophic financial and membership outcomes, the LNC spent no time discussing the threats to its survival.
And what is the LNC doing about the situation. I would in particular note that its Secretary, Mr. McMahon, who is running for National Chair, was prominently absent from putting these issues and attendant motions on the agenda.
I would also note that no member of the LNC has asked the Chair to explain any aspects of the December expenditures, such as entries in the list of consultants. For example, it is good to have excellent graphics, but an LNC member might ask to see the work products for which we are spending $4200 a month, so as to show the membership that their money is well-spent.
A report on the demand letter would also be of interest.
A lot of Libertarian Party dues paying members and almost all registered Libertarian voters who are not dues paying members and almost all small “l” libertarians pay little to no, and mostly no, attention to what the Libertarian National Committee is doing. Most of them have no idea who is on the Libertarian National Committee or what they are doing. Some of them do not even know that the Libertarian National Committee exists.
The main reason dues paying membership is down is because there are no candidates inspiring people to join or to retain their dues paying membership and there’s not really anyone in the party at any level (county affiliate, state affiliate or LNC) who is doing anything to inspire people to join or to retain their dues paying membership.
The main thing most people pay attention to is presidential campaigns and during the 2024 election dues paying membership went down and fundraising was down for the first time ever during a presidential campaign. I did not like the joint fundraising committee with RFK Jr. but if not for the party being temporarily pumped up by money from that the situation right now would be even worse. If not for selling the office in northern Virginia (which was really un unnecessary asset so selling it made sense) the party would be in even worse shape now.
The party needs to do things to inspire people to join, and it ought to have an aggressive recruiting campaign to get people to join and to renew dues paying memberships. It would be easier to do this if the party had candidates for high level offices who were inspiring people to want to get involved.
BS, Andy.
The main reason for the loss of sustaining members (dues paying members) was/is the Mises Caucus takeover in Reno, the astonishing incompetence of Angela McArdle, fundraising for Kennedy/Trump and refusal of the LNC chair to support the LP candidate elected by the DC convention delegates in 2024.
LP could have had Amash in 2024, but he bailed because of MC takeover and McArdle’s incompetence.
Not true. The Chase Oliver campaign failed to bring in new members. Most people who join the Libertarian Party due so because of a presidential candidate. Most people who join know nothing about the LNC. When I first joined the Libertarian Party in 1996 I joined because of the Harry Browne for President campaign. I did not know who was on the Libertarian National Committee or know what they were doing.
Also, Justin Amash left the Libertarian Party to run for US Senate as a Republican. Justin Amash was never very serious about the Libertarian Party. When he first left the Republican party in 2019 he switched to independent/non-partisan first. It was not until around 6 or 8 or maybe 9 months later that he joined the Libertarian Party in 2020, and after he joined he jumped into the race for the LP’s presidential nomination, but then he jumped out of that race 2 weeks later. He could have run for reelection to his US House seat in Michigan as a Libertarian Party candidate, but he did not do this. He gave up his US House seat and did not even try to get reelected. Other that getting the Libertarian Party a little bit of publicity and speaking at a few conventions, Justin Amash’s stint in the Libertarian Party was mostly a nothingburger.
As I have responded to you previously on this subject, I don’t blame Chase one bit for not bringing new members into a national party that by and large . WASN’T SUPPORTING HIM. It would have been foolish of him to try and play the long game of trying to bring in enough new members to overthrow the MC but it would have taken two years, until the next National Convention, and that was time he didn’t have. He did a great job, as far as I’m concerned, under terrible circumstances. He was the most thoroughgoing libertarian we had run for President since Michael Badnarik, and the party blew it.
National party membership was in steep contraction well before Oliver was nominated.
Andy, the figures that I have seen made it appear that the drop in national LP membership and member payments started with the “Reno Reset” takeover of the USLP’s Executive Committee by the Mise Caucus in 2022, well after the 2020 presidential campaign and well before the 2024 presidential campaign. If true, those figures do not fit your hypothesis that the LP’s 2020 and 2024 presidential candidates were the cause.
Dues paying party membership had been going up in 2022 largely because of the Mises Caucus. Dues paying membership did start dropping after that, but the big drops did not happen until later. Dues paying membership has historically been lower in non-presidential years than in presidential years. 2024 was the first time in LP history that there was no dues paying membership spike during a presidential year.
Some people who did not renew their membership in the Libertarian Party were not part of or aligned with the Mises Caucus, but a lot of the new people the Mises Caucus recruited also did not renew their memberships because as all too often happens in politics, they realized that politics is a lot of work and there is no instant gratification, so they did not renew out of frustration, and also because the Mises Caucus failed to get a candidate whom they perceived to be a celebrity to run for the presidential nomination. They wanted somebody like Dave Smith or Andrew Napolitano or Tom Woods as a candidate (a lot of people don’t know this but Andrew Napolitano almost jumped in the race and he was going to be the Mises Caucus endorsed candidate, Dave Smith was also a contender for this, but most people in the party knew about Dave Smith. Napolitano as a possible candidate was kept quite). When Michael Rectenwald emerged as the Mises Caucus candidate a lot of Mises Caucus supporters were disappointed, not because they disliked Rectenwald, but rather because they did not perceive him as having enough star power. After Chase Oliver won the presidential nomination more Mises Caucus supporters did not renew their memberships.
The Chase Oliver campaign did not really bring in new members either.
I’ll agree with this part of your comment “The party needs to do things to inspire people to join, and it ought to have an aggressive recruiting campaign to get people to join and to renew dues paying memberships. It would be easier to do this if the party had candidates for high level offices who were inspiring people to want to get involved.”
The LP and or LNC needs to get active on issues and reach out to the public, especially the registered Libertarian voters. The present membership should be well over 100,000. NO EXCUZES are ACCEPTED!
A loss of 206 sustaining members in December 2025.
LNC is going to lose another member in March.
Who first voted LP in 2000 for Harry Browne.
I wont be back until if and when LNC goes after Mr. and Mrs. Angela McArdle for embezzlement and dereliction of duty.
Right on!
I think I said it all here: https://thirdpartywatch.com/2026/02/01/robert-kraus-on-the-lp-in-crisis/
I provided specific solutions to regaining the trust of members & donors.
Obviously this board – like the last – will not take any steps to correct this issues.
Thus, it will be up to the next board to solve all the problems the last 2 LNC’s created!
So, anyone running for the LNC in May must satisfactorily answer these questions:
• What specific steps are you going to make to regain donors trust?
• How are you going to deal with “rogue” board members & affiliates like the LPNH?
• Are you going to bring back a direct mail renewal program, Pledge News & LP News (if no – why not)?
• Do you commit to stop spending the building fund money to cover operational losses & instead balance the budget?
• Do you commit to going strongly after the funds McArdle & her cohorts extorted from the LP?
• Do you commit to putting policies in place to prevent theft like the above if the convention fails to change the Bylaws to put in proper checks & balances?
• If so what particular policies?
Are you still promoting the Liberal Party USA as an alternative?
Yes NF. I support many 3rd party alternatives & hope all of them thrive including the LP. Folks who lean Classical Liberal to Libertarian (big “L”” not the MAGA fakes “l’s”) might like the bottom up structure & views of the https://www.liberalpartyusa.org/ better than what they’re seeing with the LP these days. One look at the so called LP News should tell you the messaging hasn’t changed much over the last 4 years.
I first joined the Libertarian Party in 1974. I never became a life member because I always wanted my affiliation to be dependent on the direction the organization headed. I have withheld my dues several times over the years and am certainly doing so now. While I am also looking for an alternative, I am hoping to find one with a libertarian outlook that also doesn’t have to explain its name to the vast majority of perspective supporters. I pretty much like everything about the Liberal Party USA except the name.
Perhaps they are a viable alternative.
At the very least, at least the Liberal Party USA didn’t help fundraise for Kennedy/Trump and didn’t have members and state affiliates openly supporting an authoritarian like Trump for POTUS in 2024.
It’s called principles.
The LNC under Angela McArdle sold out to Trump for $$$$$$.