Libertarian Party Elects Chase Oliver as Presidential Nominee

The Libertarian Party nominated Chase Oliver as its presidential candidate for the 2024 election at the Libertarian National Convention after seven rounds of voting on Sunday.

The Details: After eight hours of voting, he defeated the right-leaning faction Mises Caucus’s candidate Michael Rectenwald by less than a percent before clinching the victory in a final round where he faced “none of the above.” If he had lost this vote, the party would not have nominated anyone.

For Context: Oliver has previously run for Congress multiple times in Georgia, and in 2022, he was a spoiler candidate in the race between Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. Both former President Donald Trump and Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke to the convention over the weekend to mixed receptions but were eliminated in the first round of voting.

Consequences: Though the Libertarian Party is not expected to win the November election, Oliver has set his sights on winning 2% of the vote. He said, “I got 2.1% of the vote when I ran for the Senate in Georgia. I think that’s a definite doable thing, and certainly we can improve upon that with a hard-run campaign that wakes people up.”

How The Media Covered It: The Hill (Center bias) noted how Kennedy’s candidacy is a wild card and could hurt Libertarian efforts in the future. CNN (Lean Left bias) noted that Oliver is gay. Fox News (Right bias) described him as an “activist.”