Two years ago, Chase Oliver burst onto the libertarian political scene by forcing a Georgia Senate runoff election that would ultimately determine the majority in the U.S. Senate.
Now he can aim to make an even bigger mark.
Oliver won the Libertarian Party's presidential nomination in dramatic fashion on Sunday night, coming in second on the first five ballots before winning on the seventh. On the final ballot, Oliver received 60.6% of the vote, beating out “neither,” the only choice remaining on the ballot after Oliver's narrow victory, and clearing the 50% threshold needed to win. Round 6 showdown and Michael Rectenwald, a professor turned podcaster who topped each of the first five rounds.
“I'm reaching out my hand to you, and I'm asking you to take it and partner with me in the cause of freedom,” Oliver said in his victory speech, appealing to rivals within the Libertarian Party who have spent the past two years riven by deep divisions over tactics and principle.
It was a fitting end to an eventful convention that also saw Libertarian Party representatives loudly booing an unusual appearance by former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Oliver, a 38-year-old gay man from suburban Atlanta, had an impassioned response. After Trump's speech Oliver, who attended the convention on Saturday, will now spend the next six months competing head-to-head against President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, both of whom are more than twice his age. After his victory on Sunday, Oliver pledged to continue pushing a message that is unlikely to be offered by either major party nominee.
“I will continue to bring a hopeful and positive message of freedom to both those who consider themselves libertarians and those who do not yet realize they are libertarian,” Oliver promised in his victory speech.
“Chase is a hard worker, a great communicator and doesn't look like he's in his 80s,” said Joseph Henchman, a former Libertarian Party chairman who was not a delegate to this year's convention.
Oliver's victory Sunday night was a blow to the right-wing Mises Caucus, which had sought to take control of the Libertarian Party and orchestrate an appearance by Trump at the 2022 convention, and whose candidate Rectenwald was the one it had endorsed.
For much of Sunday's lengthy voting process, it looked like Rectenwald might win by a narrow margin. Disorganized and somewhat incoherent speech He admitted to getting high on Saturday night after taking marijuana edibles.
In the first round of voting, which ended mid-afternoon Sunday, no candidate came close to receiving a majority of the vote. Rectenwald led with 28.2%, followed by Oliver with 19.7% and Mike Ter Mert with 15.3%. The first round included 11 “none of these” votes, as well as write-in ballots for former President Donald Trump (6) and Stormy Daniels (1). Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who ran as an independent and was also a last-minute candidate for the Libertarian Party nomination, lost with just over 2% of the vote.
The second, third, and fourth rounds of voting narrowed the field but were inconclusive: Rectenwald maintained a lead over Oliver, who pulled away from the other candidates as Rectenwald's clear rival.
The final results were only revealed in the fifth round, when tech entrepreneur Lars Mapsted was eliminated, Oliver and Ter Maat received dozens of extra votes, and Rectenwald's lead dwindled.
After losing that round, Ter Maat endorsed Oliver from the convention floor, in return for which Oliver was named his running mate. (Unlike the Republicans and Democrats, the Libertarian Party has two separate ballots for the two positions, but the winner of the presidential nomination usually has a major influence on the outcome of the second round.)
After Ter Maat announced his support for Oliver, members of the Mises caucus said they had also offered him the vice presidency. Competing offers complicated the final vote, but Ter Maat's support for Oliver likely swayed the outcome.
In recent weeks, much of the media attention has been on whether the Libertarian Party would nominate a prominent non-libertarian like Kennedy or Trump.
Neither candidate came close to winning: Kennedy was eliminated in the first round of voting, and Trump didn't even qualify for the first round, receiving just six write-in votes.
Oliver, who has already campaigned in all 50 states despite sometimes arduous struggles, will be the Libertarian Party's standard-bearer in 2024.
