The Libertarian Party of Iowa held caucuses across the state on Monday, aligning with those also held by the other two major parties in the state. While the results are non-binding, Chase Oliver emerged as the clear winner of the night, securing sizeable margins of support over his fellow hopefuls.
Last September, the Libertarian Party of Iowa initially announced that it would hold presidential caucuses of its own to coincide with the state’s Republican and Democratic caucuses. According to state Libertarians, the only requirement to participate was to be a registered Iowa Libertarian on the day of the caucuses. The party also produced a list on their official website of Libertarian Party presidential candidates who registered with the FEC for supporters to select from, totaling 30 Libertarian candidates plus the option to write in those who weren’t listed.
In the days leading up to the caucuses, four candidates—Mike ter Maat, Chase Oliver, Lars Mapstead, and Joshua Smith—traveled to Iowa to take part in a final presidential debate in the state to boost participation.
On the night of the caucuses, preliminary results released by the Libertarian Party of Iowa declared Chase Oliver as the initial winner with 40.70% of the total votes cast in 96 out of 99 counties.
Since then, the Libertarian Party of Iowa has released official results, confirming in a press release on Tuesday that Chase Oliver won the Iowa caucuses with 42.7% of the vote. He was followed by Michael Rectenwald, who secured 16.85% of the vote, and Mike ter Maat with 13.48%. Former LNC Vice Chair Joshua Smith also garnered 13.48% of caucus votes. All other candidates received less than 10%.
According to the Libertarian Party of Iowa, the following are the caucus results with 98 of 99 counties reporting:
- Chase Oliver – 42.70%
- Michael Rectenwald – 16.85%
- Michael ter Maat – 13.48%
- Joshua Smith – 13.48%
- Vivek Ramaswamy – 4.49%
- Mario Perales – 2.25%
- Robert Sansone – 2.25%
- Jacob Hornberger – 1.12%
- Lars Mapstead – 1.12%
- Art Olivier – 1.12%
- NOTA (None of the Above) – 1.12%
It’s worth noting that the caucus results will not have any binding impact on the upcoming 2024 Libertarian National Convention in Washington, D.C., later this year. However, caucus delegates will reconvene in Des Moines this February for district conventions to select a new State Central Committee and delegates to the Libertarian National Convention.
Both State Republicans and Democrats also held elections yesterday evening, though only the Republicans had results available by the end of the night. Donald Trump secured a decisive victory in the Republican caucuses, surpassing his closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, by a significant margin and taking the lion’s share of delegates. Nikki Haley followed in a close third, while Vivek Ramaswamy finished fourth. Ramaswamy ultimately dropped out and endorsed Trump at the end of the night.
Meanwhile, the Iowa Democratic Party began voting on January 12 and will collect results until February 19, 2024. Democrats won’t have their final results until Super Tuesday.
This article has since been updated to reflect changes in the numbers based on a press release issued by the Libertarian Party of Iowa dated January 16, 2024.
FYI his Wiki article…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Oliver
Hi Jordan,
I moved from Iowa to Arkansas a couple of years ago so am not on the ground, but it is almost certain that some counties did not have participants. It would appear that some caucus sites just didn’t report straw poll results.
It seems to be a bit misleading to claim sites reported when only a handful of counties had caucus sites that actually met.
Official results were released by the Libertarian Party of Iowa yesterday and the above article has since been updated to reflect those changes. The press release issued did not produce specific numbers. That said, there are some election databases reporting that 89 people turned out (I’m looking at you, OC), and you can recreate the above percentages using that figure.
Jake Porter, I understand that you live in Iowa and were very active with state politics. Is it at all possible that some counties had no participants? According to Tuesday’s press release, the party is claiming results are based on “98 of 99 counties reporting results.”
How many actual votes were cast?
The party didn’t have 99 county caucus locations and major party status has nothing to do with the ability to hold a caucus. The party held a caucus straw poll in 2020 with many more participants than this one had.
It’s a good sign that Oliver showed more support than the combined totals of Michael Wrecktheworld and Agent Smith.
I’m amazed that the party was able to rent a caucus location in each of the 99 counties. That must have taken a lot of work.