Libertarian Eric Joss, who was running in Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, ended his campaign on Tuesday to endorse Republican challenger Gabe Evans after Evans signed the Libertarian Party of Colorado’s Liberty Pledge.
The state party announced Joss’ exit from the race in a September 3 live video on X. According to the party, the Joss and Evans campaigns reached a mutual agreement in which Evans signed a version of the party’s Liberty Pledge which was negotiated between the two camps. In exchange, Joss threw his support behind Evans. The party further added that the decision consolidated “opposition votes” against incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Yadira Caraveo.
“This is completely in line with Chairwoman Goodman’s strategic vision of the Party,” said Jordan Marinovich, Communications Director for LPCO. “Joss leveraged the original GOP deal and existing pledge, negotiated, and moved the needle toward more liberty in Colorado.”
The party stated that Evans agreed to include a Federal Reserve audit as part of his two-year plan, support accountability measures for U.S. intelligence agencies, and work to repeal the War Powers Act and return authority to Congress, among other elements of the pledge. The full pledge signed by Evans is available here.
The Libertarian Party of Colorado announced the creation of its Liberty Pledge last year, with versions designed for state and federal candidates. It was born from an earlier “gentlemen’s agreement” between state Libertarians and Republicans, in which the Libertarian Party of Colorado agreed not to field candidates in certain races if Republicans nominated candidates whose views more closely aligned with libertarian principles. The initial outline of the pledge included over a dozen policy items, including opposition to a military draft, a reduction in foreign aid spending, abolishing the Department of Education, and pardoning Edward Snowden, among other priorities.
It doesn’t look like Libertarian Party candidate Eric Joss extracted much in the way of concessions from GOP candidate Gabe Evans. Selling out Libertarian voters and independents like this is always dubious to begin with, but it’s particularly unfortunate when a Libertarian gets so little in exchange for dropping out.
So Gabe Evans isn’t willing to oppose the War on Drugs? Sounds like time to cast a blank.
What a cop-out.
Evans, who is paying himself a salary from campaign funds, is getting badly outspent trying to unseat an incumbent who won the open seat that was rated as lean R two years ago. His chances of winning are probably at 10% or less.
The Liberty Pledge Agreement was a really good idea, in my opinion. It allows the LPCO to achieve far more than by fielding its own candidates. However, I can’t help but also illuminate the downsides/risks: What the odds are of a Republican who signed the pledge, breaking it? And what can be done to prevent that beyond drawing attention to that after the fact so as to publicly shame them?