In 2004, Libertarian presidential nominee Michael Badnarik was on the ballot in states containing 98.2% of the presidential vote. In the states in which he was on the ballot, he received .330% of the total vote cast for president.
In 2008, Libertarian presidential nominee Bob Barr was on the ballot in states containing 94.8% of the presidential vote. In those states, he received .421% of the total vote cast for president.
Barr’s performance disappoints me. I expected him to do FAR better, even beat Nader in numbers of votes.
Barr is only the 2nd Libertarian to go over 500,000 votes, pretty good.
I just updated my article on third party election results with analysis :
http://www.nolanchart.com/article5411.html
if you like it click on thumbs up
Barr’s performance surprises me.
Considering the blunders and stupidities of the campaign, and the way Barr’s closest people angered and ignored Libertarians and long-time libertarians, I find it astonishing he got as many votes as he did.
What is even more astonishing is how many Libertarians have been elected over the years to local office. There are some Libertarian county supervisors who have been in office for more than a decade. Why is it that the rest of the Libertarian Party and the rest of the third parties can’t see how relatively easy it is to get elected to local office and remain in those local offices for as long as they wish? Seriously, I would be willing to bet that you could find many cities or counties throughout the United States where you could field a member of a third party for each council seat. With a little bit of hard work, you could elect a governing body where the majority of its members are members of third parties. Let’s get the Libertarians, Greens, and Constitution folks together on this.