Updated November 2018 Libertarian election results

View the updated Libertarian vote totals* for the Nov. 6, 2018, election:

• Elected and reelected officials
• U.S. Senate
• U.S. House
• Gubernatorial
• State legislatures
• Other statewide offices coming soon.
• Local offices

Watch this space for more races being added over the two or so weeks following the election.

View our live-results page, where we continue to log occasional updates, as ballots in a few tight races are still being counted and results are still being declared. 

Here are a few highlights* from Libertarian races on Nov. 6.  First things first: 27 Libertarians won their elections.

• Cole Ebel, chair of the Libertarian Party of Tennessee, won his race for Carthage City Council, joining his wife, Smith County Commissioner Erika Ebel, in holding elected office.
• In Minnesota, Vince Workman won his race for City Council in Burnsville, joining Libertarian Councilmember Cara Schulz, the LNC’s candidate recruiting specialist. Olga Parsons was elected to the Crystal City Council and Nick Roehl won a seat on the Plymouth City Council, Ward 2.
• Four Libertarians in Indiana were elected to public office, with Cheryl Heacox winning for Clay township advisor and Dean Hartley for Franklin Township Board, both winning top-three positions. Terry Coffman was elected to the Liberty Township Board and Jamie Owens was elected as a Liberty township trustee.
• Libertarian Shannon Denniston won her race for Montgomery County magistrate in Kentucky.
• In Florida, Libertarian Shawn Elliott was elected to Indian River Soil and Water Conservation District 1 with 68 percent of the vote. James Chipman won for Batram Springs Community Development District, Seat 2; Michael Cassidy won for Clay County Soil and Water Conservation District 5; Thomas Werfel won for Hamilton County Soil & Water Conservation District Supervisor; Shawn Elliott won an Indian River Soil & Water Conservation District 1 seat; Jordan Bosserman won a seat on the Suwannee County Conservation District Group 4; and Martha Bueno won for West Kendall Community Council board.
• In South Carolina, Artie Buxton won his race for school board in District 1, with 67 percent of the vote.
• Larry Bush won a seat on the Jarrell City Council in Texas.
• In Arizona, Levi Tappan was elected mayor of Page City.
• Keith Ottersberg won a seat on the Wymore City Council in Nebraska.
• Scott Wooden of California won a seat on the Del Mar Union school board.
• In Vermont, Jerry Abbott won his bid for justice of the peace in Bennington.

Also of note are three Tennessee Libertarians whom voters elected on August 2. Joshua Beale surpassed his Republican opponent to become county commissioner in Montgomery County’s District 14 with 54.8 percent. Ballot Access News reports that this is “believed to be the first partisan election in Tennessee in which a minor party member was elected since 1974.” Stephen Chambers was elected Trousdale County mayor in a two-way race, defeating the incumbent with 54.4 percent. Erika Ebel was among three candidates elected as county commissioners in Smith County, District 4, in a four-way race.

Meantime, Jeff Hewitt may yet win his race for the board of supervisors in Riverside County, California, which has been a nail-biter. At close of business on Tuesday, Nov. 14, Hewitt had received 49.45 percent (33,108 votes), just 737 votes behind his opponent, while the as-yet-uncounted provisional and absentee ballots number in the tens of thousands. Hewitt is currently completing a successful term as mayor of the city of Calimesa.

There are other Libertarians who may have also been newly elected; if so, we will add them to the lists linked in this posting.

In another tight race, Libertarian Bethany Baldes lost by a mere 53 votes after having been prematurely declared the winner of her race against the Republican incumbent in Wyoming’s state House, 55th District. Before the absentee ballots were counted, yielding her result of 49.2 percent, the media had reported widely about her supposed 194-vote margin of victory, prompting an eventual apology from the CEO of media company PitchEngine along with his kudos on Baldes’s “great campaign.”

Libertarian vote totals were high enough to either maintain or secure the LP’s ballot access for either two or four years in Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and the District of Columbia, saving future candidates significant time and expense of petitioning to qualify for the ballot.

• Ethan Bishop-Henchman received 8.39 percent in his race for council chairman in the District of Columbia. His spouse, LNC Representative Joseph Bishop-Henchman, received 6.67 percent in his race for D.C. attorney. Each of these results has met the requirement to secure ballot access for D.C. Libertarians through 2020.
• Larry Sharpe received 90,816 votes in his race for governor of New York, well over the 50,000-vote threshold to assure Libertarian Party ballot access in New York through 2020.
• John Yeutter won nearly 25 percent of the vote in his race for Oklahoma auditor and inspector, which secures Libertarian Party ballot access through 2022.
• Voters numbering 1,609,716 cast their ballots for Mark Ash for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 8. His 25.3 percent result serves to assure LP Texas ballot access through 2020.
• Richard Brubaker, running for the U.S. house from Wyoming, received enough votes to retain Libertarian Party ballot access for the state.
• Mark Rutherford assured Indiana ballot access until 2022 with his race for secretary of state.
• In Massachusetts, Daniel Fishman has assured ballot access for two more years in his race for auditor.

Several other Libertarian candidates attained significant shares of the vote on Nov. 6.

• Two-term New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee in 2012 and 2016, received more than 15 percent of the votes in a three-way race for the U.S. senate. Nebraska state legislator Sen. Laura Ebke received 43.7 percent of the vote in her re-election bid.
• Libertarian National Committee Chair Nicholas Sarwark received 11.2 percent of the vote in a four-way special election for mayor of Phoenix, Arizona. Libertarian National Committee Development Director Lauren Daugherty received 22 percent of the vote in her two-way run for justice of the peace in McLennan County, Texas.
• In Washington, Brian Luke received 27 percent of the vote in his run for the U.S. house in the 2nd District 2, and Allen Acosta garnered 30 percent for state House, 22nd District.
• Mark Fish received nearly 11 percent in his race for the Alaska state house in a three-way race against both a Republican and a Democrat.
• In races for state assembly in California, Justin Quigley garnered nearly 31 percent of the vote in District 21 and LP California Chair Honor “Mimi” Robson earned more than 28 percent in District 70. In her first candidacy, Autumn Browne, the daughter of two-time Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne (1996 and 2000), garnered 28 percent in District 69. Brandon Nelson received more than 26 percent in District 4, and Christopher Stare got nearly 14 percent in District 51.

Many thanks to all 833 Libertarian candidates, along with their many more campaign supporters and volunteers, for their vigilance this fall, in promoting the benefits of smaller government, individual freedom, and Libertarian solutions.

This post was updated on Nov. 17 and Nov. 21, 2018 to reflect increases in the number of Libertarians elected on Nov. 6.

* Figures are tentative unless otherwise indicated.  As results continue to be reported from elections offices nationwide, this information will be updated.