Chase Oliver has suspended his Libertarian Party bid for governor of Georgia, saying in a social media statement that he is stepping aside for family and personal reasons.
“So it is with regret that I announce that I am suspending my campaign as the Libertarian nominee for Governor of Georgia,” Oliver wrote Saturday. “Ultimately, family and personal well-being have to come first. Its not a decision made lightly, but I believe this is the right choice to make.”
Oliver was nominated by the Libertarian Party of Georgia at its annual state convention in January. Delegates also nominated Allen Buckley for U.S. Senate and Ted Metz for secretary of state, though Metz has since shifted to running for the same office as a Republican. The party later announced that several other candidates for statewide office had filed to qualify for the ballot, including Colin McKinney for insurance commissioner and Tom Blooming for the Public Service Commission’s District 5 seat.
Oliver was the Libertarian Party’s 2024 presidential nominee, running alongside Mike ter Maat. The ticket received 650,126 votes nationwide, including 20,684 votes in Georgia. He was also the state Libertarian Party’s nominee for U.S. Senate in 2022, running against Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker.
Prior to 2024, the Libertarian Party of Georgia was a political body with automatic statewide ballot access, allowing it to nominate statewide candidates by convention. After Oliver’s presidential showing fell short of the total needed to preserve that access, the party had to begin petitioning again to place statewide nominees on the ballot.
As a result, each candidate for statewide office this cycle needs signatures from 1 percent of the registered voters eligible to vote in the last election for that office, with petitions due July 14. For most statewide races, that means collecting well over 80,000 raw signatures to account for rejected submissions.
Georgia law also allows a political body to fill vacancies caused by a candidate’s withdrawal, though any replacement nominee would still need to meet the state’s petition requirements before the July deadline.
“I want to thank my team who worked hard and those who supported the campaign. I am sorry I failed to meet this challenge, but life got in the way,” Oliver wrote. “Ultimately, we arent only judged by our success, but also how we rise up to overcome adversity. I will be back in the political arena one day, but that day isn’t today.”
The LP of GA lost the ballot status it had, which allowed them to run candidates for statewide offices with having to gather petition signatures. The petition in Georgia to regain that ballot access and the petition to get on the ballot as an independent candidate for Governor are extremely difficult.
A law passed in GA a few years ago which allows parties who have recognized status in a specificed number of states, J think it is 20; to be able to place a presidential candidate on the ballot with a party label without having to gather petition signatures Another law passed in GA a few years ago which rrduced the presidential candidate petition to 7,500 signatures.
I hope someone steps up.