On Nov. 7, the Libertarian Party won 12 races for public office, continuing an upward trend in the number of voters who support the party. Last year, the Libertarian Party set its all-time record in presidential elections when the ticket of Gov. Gary Johnson and Gov. Bill Weld won nearly 4.5 million votes from all 50 states. Under the leadership of Wes Benedict, executive director of the Libertarian National Committee, the LP is succeeding in maintaining that forward momentum in the 2017 off-year elections through a focus on building the party by winning local races.
This year’s elections are not quite over. On Dec. 12, a special election will be held in Alabama to fill the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions when he was appointed attorney general. In the GOP primary, the notorious Judge Roy Moore defeated the appointed incumbent. Moore has twice been removed from his former position on the Alabama Supreme Court, once for defying a federal court order to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the Alabama Judicial Building and a second time for directing probate court judges to enforce the state’s unconstitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
The Democrats nominated Doug Jones, who is best known for, in 1998, successfully prosecuting two Ku Klux Klan members for their roles in the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Although this is normally a safe GOP state, Moore and Jones are surprisingly close in the polling. The Democratic Party has even dispatched former Joe Biden, the former U.S. vice president, to campaign for Jones in Alabama.
Enter Libertarian Party candidate Ron Bishop, who is running a solid campaign focused on libertarian principles and positioning himself as the sane choice between an extreme social conservative and a Democrat who is much too progressive for Alabamians to vote for under most circumstances. Bishop’s website, RonBishopForUSSenate.com, provides a clear overview of his positions on a wide range of political issues.
Bishop faces the challenge of running as a write-in candidate because Alabama election law requires a 20 percent share of the statewide vote in order to retain ballot status. This creates an effective Democratic/Republican political duopoly.
Bishop hopes to raise enough money to hire a skywriter to sky write “Who is Ron Bishop?” above the Auburn vs. Alabama football game a couple of weeks before the election. The campaign would provide attendees with the answer to that question by distributing 100,000 Ron Bishop campaign flyers throughout the stadium.
The 12 Libertarian candidates who won office on Nov. 7 are:
- Jim Turney — Altamonte Springs City Commission (Florida)
- Greg Perry — Rome Township Auditor (Pennsylvania)
- Jennifer Moore — Auditor of Upper Providence in Montgomery County (Pennsylvania)
- James Fryman — Victory Township Supervisor in Venango County (Pennsylvania)
- Demo Agoris — Houston Borough Council in Washington County (Pennsylvania)
- Jeffy Geleff — Exeter Township School Director in Berks County (Pennsylvania)
- Jason Aucker — Spring Township Auditor in Snyder County (Pennsylvania)
- Zachary Elliott — Coconut Grove Village Council (Florida)
- Kevine Cline — Long Beach City Council (Washington)
- Christopher Nance — Carthage Town Commission (North Carolina)
- Eleanor Russell — Houston Borough Judge of Elections (Pennsylvania)
- Jake Towne — Lower Nazareth Auditor and Judge of Elections (Pennsylvania)
Many more Libertarian candidates made respectable showings on Election Day. View more election results.
