Third-parties are often derided as “spoilers”, for running in elections where a small number of votes can be enough to change the outcome of the two-party contest. Democrats and Republicans don’t take this lightly: coordinating debates that disallow third-party candidates, seeking to minimize the media coverage they receive, and often going so far as to even block third-party candidates from getting a place on the ballot.
The Illinois Republican Party is currently going door-to-door interrogating voters who signed Libertarian ballot access petitions, hoping to find enough irregularities in the tens of thousands of signatures to invalidate the party’s candidacies. In Wisconsin, the Democratic Party successfully challenged the nomination papers for the Green Party’s only 2014 candidate for State Legislature, in the 47th assembly district (Monona). In Ohio, a Federal judge found clear evidence that the state’s Republicans had coordinated the effort to have the candidacy of Libertarian Charlie Earl for Governor removed from ballots.
Eleven Libertarian candidates across Wisconsin have already cleared this hurdle, and are running in this fall’s elections. They include a full statewide slate and half-dozen legislative races, and together constitute a majority of the candidates not running as either Republicans or Democrats.
Advocating smaller government, lower taxes, and free markets, the Libertarians are sometimes perceived as pulling primarily from Republican-leaning voters. However with legalization of marijuana, legal equality for same-sex couples, support for civil liberties, and opposition to police abuse and over-incarceration all featuring prominently in their message, some Democrats are also starting to worry about losing key swing voters to the Libertarians.
In 2002, Libertarian candidate and mayor of Tomah, Ed Thompson, ran for governor and won almost 11%, or 184,555 votes, placing first in two counties. That year less than 72,000 votes (4%) separated the Republican and Democratic candidates in the final result.
Another former mayor appears on this year’s Libertarian ticket: Jerry Shidell of Rhinelander is seeking the office of state treasurer. His campaign slogan is simple: “Hire me, I’ll fire me,” expressing his objection to the state continuing to spend money on a powerless, symbolic elected office with no responsibilities.
“We’re here for the unrepresented middle, those who don’t line up on the usual left-right spectrum,” says Andy Craig, the Libertarian candidate for secretary of state. “We’re offering a consistent platform of limited government and economic liberty, along with tolerance and individual liberty on social issues: a popular combination you can’t get from Republicans or Democrats.”
Craig has also filed an official campaign finance complaint with the state’s election authorities, objecting to the exclusion of Libertarian and other third-party candidates from the ostensibly nonpartisan televised debates.
Robert Burke, Libertarian candidate for governor, sums up his strategy more directly, telling interviewers that “I promise to mess things up for both sides.” Burke, who happens to share a last name with the Democratic candidate for governor (no relation), has made a point of calling his opponents “the Red Team” and “the Blue Team” because “neither one represents what the words ‘republican’ and ‘democratic’ actually mean.”
Three Libertarian candidates are running in state legislative elections where the incumbent would be otherwise unopposed, leading to a two-candidate election. In other races, the party’s nominees will compete against both Republicans and Democrats.
In such a three-way race, the winner could receive as little as one-third of the votes cast. That was what happened in next-door Minnesota when Jesse Ventura won the governorship with 37% of the vote on the Reform Party ticket. With polls finding that resentment against government and a libertarian combination of views on the issues continues to gain traction, this year’s candidates assert that the two-party system is ripe for a major challenge.
A recent Marquette poll of Wisconsin found that 67% of voters agreed that “you can’t really trust the government to do the right thing,” 82% agree that “government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves,” and an overwhelming 90% agreed that “government wastes a lot of money we pay in taxes.” In those numbers, the Libertarians see the potential to elect candidates who represent a much more skeptical view of government and its role in society.
Securing their place on the ballot is also one of their goals: if any of their candidates receives greater than one percent of the vote for a statewide office this year (governor, lt. governor, secretary of state, attorney general, or state treasurer), the Libertarian Party of Wisconsin will be officially recognized with a legal status on par with the other two parties, and be entitled to place its Presidential nominee on the 2016 ballot in the state.
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