Dan Feliciano topped the list of Libertarian gubernatorial percentage results in 2014, with 4.3% (8,285 votes) for Governor of Vermont. His vote total in the election resulted in neither of the major-party candidates getting the 50% majority needed for an outright win. This left it up to the legislature to re-elect the incumbent Democrat, who had received the most votes (not an unusual occurrence in Vermont.)
Feliciano had also controversially run a write-in campaign for the Republican nomination, while already running as the Libertarian nominee. Vermont is one of eight states were fusion nominations are permitted. In the Republican primary, Felicianio received 13% of the vote, placing second against three other ballot-listed candidates. At the time of his departure from the L.P., Feliciano was also the Vice-Chair of the Vermont Libertarian Party.
More details, including comments from both Republicans and Libertarians in Vermont as well as Felicianio himself, can be read in this article at vtdigger.com
Country club Republicans are better in some ways, worse in others. In any case, as Sean O’Toole shared on the LNC list:
It is Mr Feliciano’s decision to make, and the Vermont Libertarians have a right to praise or condemn it. Just for information however, the Vermont Republican Party is not the same as the southern dominated National Republican Party with its commitment to militarism and social conservatism. So the experience any of our commenters have had at tea party events or with Republican candidates in the rest of the country may not be a relevant guide to whether this is a beneficial move or not.
Yes, first past the post is a pretty bad election system. Then when you factor in the people who chose not to, or were forbidden to, vote at all, Shumlin received the electoral approval of about 14.3% of Vermonters.
I think candidates winning with less than 50%, in other words when more voters voted for somebody else, makes good data points for a better elections system than FPTP. From 1992 to 2000, that was true in three presidential elections in a row (setting aside the EC). That’s why I took note of it, more than wondering who would have won if Feliciano hadn’t run. You’re right about the holes in the spoiler argument. But then my inclination when a Republican accuses us of costing them an election is to simply say “Good.” rather than arguing hypothetical 2nd choice breakdowns.
The people who think Feliciano kept someone below 50% generally think he “took” his votes from Milne, not Shumlin, and you point out some reasons why it’s possible his votes would have swung that way without him – but even if they swung to Shumlin in his absence, it would not be 100%. Some would have stayed home, some would have voted for Milne. I doubt the split would have been more than 70/30 in either direction, and that’s not even counting the ones who wouldn’t have voted – I don’t know how many that would be, but I’d say it would have been virtually certain to be a double digit percentage.
“Here, there’s the complication of the other scattering minor candidate votes, which I did incorrectly lump in with Felicianio’s totals because I wasn’t aware of them. But “third-party voters kept the winner below 50%” isn’t speculative, it’s a simple mathematical observation.”
That’s true. If none of them had been running someone would have had 50%, probably Shumlin, which would have changed nothing except the need to have the legislative vote as far as who won. But Feliciano alone not running is unlikely to have pushed anyone over 50%, and especially unlikely to have pushed Milne over 50%, which is what the media stories and Republican supporters are saying or implying when they make those kinds of claims.
I didn’t say keep Milne below 50%, I said keep the winner below 50%. That would be Shumlin, the Democrat. Had all of the Libertarian (and other minor/ind. candidate’s) voters stayed home and abstained, or voted for any of the remaining two candidates in any numbers, the winner (either Shumlin or Milne) would have had over 50%, even possibly with the exact same number of votes. It’s just another way of saying enough people voted non-D/R (and the D-R race was close enough) that the winner didn’t have an absolute majority.
Here, there’s the complication of the other scattering minor candidate votes, which I did incorrectly lump in with Felicianio’s totals because I wasn’t aware of them. But “third-party voters kept the winner below 50%” isn’t speculative, it’s a simple mathematical observation.
AC:
To push Milne above 50%, not only would all or virtually of Feliciano’s voters have had to A) still voted if he hadn’t run and B) for Milne, but, if that wasn’t improbable enough, the vast majority of the other alt candidates’ voters (even the progressive candidates) would have had to do the same thing. It doesn’t seem likely at all that this would have happened.
“I just can’t see how any libertarian can avoid puking during GOP events. I tried to work with some tea partiers and 9-12ers in the early days of that movement. But, the bigotry and intolerance was just too much for me to handle.”
Same. I went to one tea party event. I was with them right up until an old guy dressed as Abraham Lincoln started railing against gays, and then I bolted & never went back.
I just can’t see how any libertarian can avoid puking during GOP events. I tried to work with some tea partiers and 9-12ers in the early days of that movement. But, the bigotry and intolerance was just too much for me to handle.
Being a spoiler is different than keeping the winner below 50%, even if people wrongly try to conflate them. The latter is a more objective observation, and isn’t dependent on who Libertarian or other minor parties would have voted for otherwise, or if they would have voted at all.
In this case though, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume the Libertarian probably did pull more otherwise-Republican votes, given the tenor and focus of his campaign. Both he and the Republicans focused heavily on opposing the single-payer healthcare bill, or at least that was my impression. There are examples that skew the other way, Overby’s special election vs. Jolly and Sink comes to mind. Just because the baseline Libertarian vote skews nearly evenly D-R, doesn’t mean every Libertarian candidate always matches that breakdown.
Also keep in mind the relatively small real numbers we’re talking about, since this is Vermont, the second-least-populated state in the country, and it was the lowest-turnout election in a long time (at least nationally)
Good question, but I doubt enough of them read IPR for this to be a good place to ask it. You may want to try, for example, their FB group/page.
What does the Vermont LP rank and file think of his decision.
Even if there had been no additional independent/alt party candidates, it’s a common – and completely unsupported – assumption made by the MSM and big party politicians that if the LP candidate wasn’t on the ballot all those votes would go to the Republican. In reality, a big chunk wouldn’t vote and the rest would be split roughly equally, give or take – and in many races, more would vote for the Democrat than the Republican.
@Thomas L Knapp. Good catch. I didn’t actually do the math, I’d just seen it reported that way and assumed. You’re right, the split was 46 – 45 – 4, with the rest scattering among a handful of independents and the Liberty Union nominee, so Feliciano + Milne would have still been less than 50%… I didn't know there had been other candidates on the ballot.
But like I said it's not an unusual occurrence in Vermont for it to get kicked to the legislature. Schumlin was elected to his first (two-year) term by the legislature as well. They haven't failed to elected the 1st-place candidate since the 19th C. So if Milne had placed ahead of Shumlin, he likely (not guaranteed, but likely) would have been elected, even though the legislature is super-majority Democrat. And Feliciano did get aprox. four times the D-R spread.
Agreed with Knapp, and furthermore, in all likelihood, even of his voters that would have voted for Milne or Shumlin, those would have been split, maybe down the middle as is fairly typical for LP candidates, maybe 60/40 or 70/30, but they would have been split.
Unsurprising, Feliciano’s disloyalty was obvious during his GOP write-in bid. You may recall I advised Libertarians to vote for one of the other minor party candidates.
It is not obvious that “[h]is vote total in the election resulted in neither of the major-party candidates getting the 50% majority needed for an outright win.”
That’s particularly true in the case of Republican candidate Scott Milne. If every last single Feliciano voter had instead voted for Milne, Milne would still have knocked down less than 50% of the vote (49.46%). And nearly every Feliciano voter would have had to pull the level for Shumlin to put him over the top (Shumlin’s vote total if he had received all of the Feliciano votes would have been 50.72%).
And it’s quite likely that a number of Feliciano’s voters would have either not voted, or would have voted for Emily Peyton, Peter Diamonstone, Bernard Peters, Cris Ericson or one of the write-ins rather than for Shumlin or Milne if Feliciano hadn’t been on the ballot.
This is a point I’ve made elsewhere to those on the fence between running GOP vs L.P.: the percentage results in his primary seem more impressive, particularly as a write-in. But that higher percentage only represents a quarter (~2k vs ~8k) as many votes as he received in the general election.
Sad news for VT-LP, but I’ll leave it to others to hurl the inevitable accusations of traitor, etc.