Here is the latest poll making its way around Facebook.
Candidates listed are: Marc Feldman, Joy Waymire, Cecil Ince, Gary Johnson, Austin Petersen, Darryl Perry, and Steve Kerbel.
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June 22, 2026
Your Premier Source on Third Parties and Independent Candidates Since 2008
Here is the latest poll making its way around Facebook.
Candidates listed are: Marc Feldman, Joy Waymire, Cecil Ince, Gary Johnson, Austin Petersen, Darryl Perry, and Steve Kerbel.
Caryn Ann Harlos is a paralegal residing in Castle Rock, Colorado and presently serving as the Region 1 Representative on the Libertarian National Committee and is a candidate for LNC Secretary at the 2018 Libertarian Party Convention. Articles posted should NOT be considered the opinions of the LNC nor always those of Caryn Ann Harlos personally. Caryn Ann's goal is to provide information on items of interest and (sometimes) controversy about the Libertarian Party and minor parties in general not to necessarily endorse the contents.
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The 8:58 comment could be reworked into a general update on the campaign to post as an article if you want to do that.
Redlich installed some new plugin, but I don’t see a button or link to go along with it. The plugin doesn’t do any good if it’s not linked anywhere. I emailed him about it.
SK @ 8:58 am
Thanks for the update. Please let us know as much as possible about what is happening with your campaign before, during and after events as they get set up and happen. Video and audio clips, schedules, published commentaries and who picks them up, photos – anything and everything.
NO
NOT
NOTA
Obama was first elected to State Legislature, two years prior to being elected to US Senate from IL.
State Legislature is a post at least 8 big-L Libertarians have held, and almost 8 have been elected to. (ie: It’s a “winnable” post.) Dogcatcher is a lower post, as is “member of the water commission,” …but those are posts that American voters do not care about, and typically, they are determined by party membership, gender, or “the sound of the candidate’s name.”
Hmmmm. I wonder if Libertarians could put together a strategy for winning electoral power at a significant enough level where
1) Average voters would care about the offices we’d won
2) Those offices would open us up to ever-increasing relevance
3) Those earlier victories could open the door to a relevant LP that average voters care about, in effect “building our brand”
Back in 1979, when Dick Randolph changed his registration to Libertarian, and then got re-elected as a Libertarian, he became, by far
Skerbal has never been elected to a State Legislature as a Libertarian. He has never tried to run for State Legislative office. He has therefore never succeeded, or was such a failure that he failed to win that office. Some combination of the prior has kept him totally off the radar of the average voter. The same is true of most people who are running as Libertarians.
People who are totally off the radar of the average voter should run for State Legislature and win, or should not run. They should not embarrass themselves, or the Libertarian brand delusionally running for president.
Most of these candidates could not get elected to a State Legislature in Alaska, Idaho, or New Mexico.
This is why the LP is a struggling joke, and not a political powerhouse. In fact, this is common sense to the average “person on the street.” If you haven’t come to this conclusion, then congratulations: you were born without the capacity for political strategy, …Welcome the the Libertarian Party, where you can be surrounded by others of your kind.
…It is Gary Johnson’s to lose, if only for the simple fact that he is capable of doing basic math.
NOTA
Jill, Thank you for your comment. I have quite a bit of experience in California as well, and thankfully there were no issues with the insurance commissioner there. California invented the witch hunt. I know many people that were badly damaged by the California Department of Insurance, thankfully I was not one of them.
I appreciate your comments on the insurance thing, Steve. We have a very active insurance commissioner in my state, CA. Sometimes it’s hard to move for fear of doing something wrong.
Hello all. I will address these items for you. First, there are others with the same name however while I wish I had the time to fly-fish, i haven’t had the time for this in recent memory. I was with Rio National Insurance until earlier this year, as the regulators ultimately killed it, and the 38 jobs I had created. Currently I am in a consulting role and this works very well with my work in spreading the cause of Liberty to our country.
And Jill, that item you were discussing was an administrative issue with the Missouri Department of Insurance. That issue actually happened in 2009 and 2010, but was ultimately resolved in 2014. There was never an allegation of fraudulent activity, and none of these issues actually involved me personally. There was an insurance carrier that my former company contracted with that became insolvent and as government tends to do, they had to go after someone since the insurance carrier that was responsible was no longer in existence. I agreed to this resolution because there was no fighting government regulation successfully, and I had never wanted to run an insurance program in Missouri again. The regulators made me responsible for everything that occurred in my remote office that was part fabrication and where there was any truth to their story, the actions in question were handled by some of my employees in my Missouri office… I was in Colorado recovering from spine surgery at the time. This was my first personal experience seeing the insanity of the iron fist of government regulation.
My platform has many similarities with the Libertarian Party Platform. I look at it this way… After 40+ years of work in developing the platform, it is time to help America to embrace that platform, i.e., turn theory into reality. Regarding government regulation it is not just my own experience that highlights the need for change. Thousands of small businesses are regulated out of business each and every year, serving no purpose other than making headlines for the government agency to illustrate to the public what a great job they are doing in combating the evil business owners. The reality is that they are attempting to sustain their own jobs and to grow their bureaucracies at the expense of the taxpayer. I am not supporting any such socialist agenda.. I am promoting small business by trying to reduce and eliminate government regulation for the purpose of allowing individual choice for people to have their own small businesses without government regulation destroying them in favor of the mega corporations which have the resources to deal with these purposeless witch hunts.
My policy for defense is based upon the premise that we need to have a strong defense, which is able to actually defend us against aggression. I support the necessity of sovereign nations to fund and provide for their own defense, and I believe that our intervention is partly responsible for the destabilization of our planet.
Immigration is simple.. I believe in the freedom of movement. We need to be able to remove the financial incentive for people to come here to receive any benefits paid for by taxpayers, and we need to end the drug war, which is responsible for most of the border related violence.
The reason many people have heard of me and some still are not familiar is that my campaigning has been selective to date. I have attended LP state conventions, Local LP functions, have done some social media, and have gotten to know many in the leadership. I have been on 8 Libertarian podcasts, and several main stream media interviews. My personal appearances are increasing. Last night I was in the California debate online. Today I am having another interview with a major news outlet. Tomorrow, the El Paso County Libertarian monthly meeting. Friday, I am flying to Boston for the debate. Next Wednesday I am traveling to Western Nebraska for a meeting with the local LP there. I have been aggressive, and that aggressiveness is building. My intention is to earn the nomination, and to work tirelessly to get us past major party status in the 2016 election.
To me, most Americans are Libertarians in some way. I see it as my job to make this clear to them.
The idea that Kerbel is far ahead in online polls “because the other candidates are so weak” seems to imply that the candidates are fairly equally well-known within the party and that voters are judging them on platform, presentation, etc. From my subjective viewpoint, that is not the case.
Basically I’m trying to figure out whether Kerbel is well-known in some segment of the party I haven’t been keeping track of, and getting good support from that segment, or whether he or a supporter is stuffing the web polls.
His campaign platform is interesting, but a bit worrying. Parts of it are cut/pasted from the party’s platform; parts of it are weird technocracy / guild socialist ideas (on regulation) disguised as a sort of privatization scheme, one of two of the biggest campaign issues this cycle (the military/defense plank) seems purposely low-information, and another (immigration) isn’t even mentioned except in passing (in the no government discrimination vs. LGBTQ people plank).
Personally I’m still on NOTA, but with Perry in a strong second place and gaining as the alternative to a likely third straight GOP retread campaign.
YMMV. I will be running a debate between all these people and may have an opinion afterward.
6:28 PM: Tom, One might suggest that Kerbel is doing well in part because the other candidates are so weak.
forgot to hit subscribe
Tom,
==Does he have a couple of fans who know how to stuff Internet polls, or does he have a real base of support, possibly based on a real record of activism of some sort?==
He goes to a lot events from what I understand. He has come to several of our Board meetings, several meetup events, and worked an Outreach booth. He does quite a bit on Facebook where he has been gaining support by giving a unifying message to the Party which has been well-received (and I find particularly compelling).
He participates in the LPRC a bit.
His character and class in dealing with people on FB is very good.
On the insurance case issue, back when he first declared he took the time to speak to our Board about it and again at meetup. I do not recall the specifics at this time except that it involved (according to him.. I have not independently verified anything, but he presented it very credibly and seemingly forthrightly) a lot of state interference and red tape. He will have to give more details as his campaign goes on, but the initial explanation seemed reasonable to me. I can’t speak for anyone else. And I have not pursued it further than that initial discussion. This I am sure will be explored in depth as the campaigns go on.
I have met him personally multiple times, had an extended phone conversation, and interact quite a bit on FB.
So right now, the only candidates (not counting Johnson, he isn’t declared) are Kerbel and Perry.
It is what it is.
I’d vote for Perry at this time.
That discussion was at https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2015/04/steve-kerbel-seeking-libertarian-partys-2016-presidential-nomination/
Someone here last week posted some court papers about Steve Kerbel’s insurance business, and how he agreed to close the business and give up his license in exchange for fraud and other charges being dropped. This happened in 2014. I found the court case to be disturbing, and it will keep me from supporting Kerbel. He does seem to be running a decent campaign, though, and his answers to questions indicate he understands the Libertarian Party and what we stand for.
I’m still supporting Darryl Perry.
I’m trying to figure Steve Kerbel out. Apart from some references indicating he may be involved in car insurance (a company called “Rio National”), pretty much the only thing the Web reveals is that he’s running for president and that he may like fly fishing (I’m assuming that he is not, in addition to being a Colorado car insurance guy, also a Florida attorney and a DC Jewish wine enthusiast).
Does he have a couple of fans who know how to stuff Internet polls, or does he have a real base of support, possibly based on a real record of activism of some sort?
So in reality… no.
Leaving a bunch of facebook comments and messages mostly.
Is she really campaigning?
As of the last time I checked, Petersen is still third in his own poll behind Kerbel and Johnson. Has that changed yet?
Apparently, Joy Waymire will be running as a Libertarian. There was some kind of mix-up when she filed, and she was listed as Independent. I read that it’s being corrected.