From The Daily Beast on November 11:
“On the day before the 2016 election, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson sent a note to his supporters. ‘Whatever happens tomorrow, understand we won,’ he said.
“But on the day after the election, with Hillary Clinton vanquished and Donald Trump declared the president-elect, the main things Johnson and his fellow Libertarians had won were about 3 percent of the vote and the unmitigated rage of angry liberals and journalists looking for someone to blame for Trump’s victory.”
“But if Democrats are looking for someone to blame for putting Trump in the White House, Libertarians say they need to look in the mirror.
“Joe Hunter, communications director for the Johnson-Weld campaign, … noted it was voters in 50 states, not the Libertarian ticket, that got Trump elected.
“’The attacks on Governor Johnson from the left were relentless as it became clear that many millennials and former [Bernie] Sanders voters were looking closely at our ticket,’ Hunter said. ‘If those attacks weren’t quite effective enough for the Clinton camp, it is certainly not our responsibility.’
“Likewise, Libertarian leaders in the states with the closest margins rejected any idea that it’s their fault that Clinton lost.
“In Michigan, where Trump’s margin of victory was even smaller, the Libertarian Party’s state chairman said there are no simple answers to why Trump won but said having a Libertarian on the ticket wasn’t one of them.
“’This was a bad state for the Clintons and they spent way too little time here. They got what they deserved, and that’s coming from someone who thinks the Donald is an idiot,’ said Bill Gelineau said of the Democrats’ sour grapes. ‘We have no role in tipping the numbers for or against Donald Trump, and we viewed both of them as equally unqualified for the job.’
“Gelineau described Libertarians in the state as an ascendant force that draws equally from both parties, not the vessel of protest votes in a presidential election year. The only way the major parties could do better in the future is to have a better message, he said. “’My simple answer is, adopt our ideals of freedom and maybe you’ll earn back some of our voters. I doubt it.’”
