The Libertarian Party website lists 575 candidates for the November 2012 elections on its website from 45 states. That’s in addition to the Presidential ticket of Gary Johnson and James Gray, for a total of 577. Of those, 147 are running for U.S. House, and 14 for U.S. Senate.
Texas leads the total count with 119, followed by Colorado with 68, and Michigan with 49.
| State | Count | Rank |
| Texas | 119 | 1 |
| Colorado | 68 | 2 |
| Michigan | 49 | 3 |
| Indiana | 31 | 4 |
| Missouri | 28 | 5 |
| Ohio | 21 | 6 |
| Kansas | 20 | 7 |
| Arizona | 19 | 8 |
| North Carolina | 18 | 9 |
| Pennsylvania | 16 | 10 |
| Oregon | 16 | 11 |
| Montana | 16 | 12 |
| New Hampshire | 15 | 13 |
| Arkansas | 14 | 14 |
| Delaware | 14 | 15 |
| New York | 12 | 16 |
| Utah | 12 | 17 |
| Wisconsin | 11 | 18 |
| Maryland | 9 | 19 |
| South Carolina | 5 | 20 |
| Connecticut | 5 | 21 |
| Louisiana | 5 | 22 |
| Idaho | 5 | 23 |
| New Jersey | 5 | 24 |
| North Dakota | 4 | 25 |
| Georgia | 4 | 26 |
| Tennessee | 3 | 27 |
| Rhode Island | 3 | 28 |
| Florida | 3 | 29 |
| Mississippi | 2 | 30 |
| Illinois | 2 | 31 |
| Massachusetts | 2 | 32 |
| Minnesota | 2 | 33 |
| Nevada | 2 | 34 |
| California | 2 | 35 |
| Oklahoma | 2 | 36 |
| Kentucky | 2 | 37 |
| Nebraska | 2 | 38 |
| Maine | 1 | 39 |
| Wyoming | 1 | 40 |
| Alaska | 1 | 41 |
| Hawaii | 1 | 42 |
| Wyoming | 1 | 43 |
| Virginia | 1 | 44 |
| West Virginia | 1 | 45 |
| Grand Total | 575 |
This is a preliminary list and it is likely that the counts will change between now and election day. Please point out any corrections in the comments area.
Comments removed from this thread; see archive.org to find them.
I’d like to see a chart comparing the number of LP candidates per State with the number LP members in that State.
Some emailed these CA results to me:
CA Gail K. Lightfoot U.S. Senator 2.1%
CA Douglas Arthur Tuma U.S. Rep 7 3.1%
CA Steve Collett U.S. Rep 33 4.3%
CA Sean P. Mc Gary U.S. Rep 37 0.0% write-in
CA Michael Benoit U.S. Rep 50 5.4%
CA Lisa D. Ringer State Sen 9 0.1% write-in
CA John H. Webster State Sen 13 15.4%
CA Charley Hooper State Assembly 1 5.4%
CA Janice Marlae Bonser State Assembly 8 4.3%
I am glad these candidates made the effort to be in the primaries even though they didn’t make it to the general election due to the “top two” rule in California.
I’m a big fan of running for office, even when it’s an un-winnable race, to help affect policy and build for the future.
My rough count shows that 83% of the candidates listed on the LP web site are running for state or federal office. Since over 99% of those state and federal candidates are going to lose, that means that only 13% of the above candidates have even a small chance of winning.
It is good to see Texas with 24 candidates running for local office, but I feat that only 1 or two of them have a chance of winning, based on the size of the counties they are running in.
By Election Day, I personally will have donated money to 2 or 3 Libertarian candidates for local office here in the San Francisco Bay area.
Double petition requirement, plus lawsuit from oddball attorney, put a damper on things there.
Wes, local races are indeed the thing to do in California. Easier said than done, of course, but hopefully that can become a priority after the 2012 fraud–er, I mean election.
California is in tremendously terrible shape. We need to increase our registered voters by more than 10 % immediately. My incredibly smart husband said he’ll hang our by Jay Leno’s studio to register the voters in line, although I don’t believe that the big announcement will be that Ron will jump to the LP. Hopefully we can gather many new people that afternoon.
Mark Axinn,
I’m pleased with New York’s candidate field considering how hard it is to get on the ballot there. I’m also proud of Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, Ohio, and many other states.
I do wish California had more going on. Scott Lieberman and Aaron Starr often preach about running for local winnable races. Would be nice to see those two make some of that happen in California instead of their other LP activities.
Mark, if you’ll donate $150 to LASPAC.org, I’ll make an educated guess at “seeing how many candidates many of these states would have if they did not have automatic ballot status,” and post that educated guess in the comments here. (Feel free to order signs with that $150)
Stewart Flood, if you donate $75 to the Libertarian Booster PAC, I’ll make a list of states “ordered on a per-capita basis, the numbers reported above.”
I’d be delighted if someone else takes a stab at s those lists and posts below for free, saving me the time, and Mark and Stewart the dough (although that dough would be going to a good cause).
@20
The LPF has willfully turned its back on candidates during this election cycle. This started when Alex Snitker (2010 LPF US Senate candidate) defected to the Ron Paul camp and tried to recruit people into the Republican Party. Instead of condemning Snitker, Adrian Wyllie (current LPF chair) instead gave Snitker a platform to speak.
At the 2012 LPF convention there was even a motion to seat Republicans as delegates . Thankfully it was voted down.
Now the LPF is willfully withholding money from a Libertarian candidate. In Florida, $500 of your filing fee goes to the party you register under. It was LPF policy to refund that to the candidate, going so far as to vote to ask the state to just waive the fee for LP candidates.
They are withholding that money from state house candidate Franklin Perez. It is a long and complicated saga you can Google, but for all of Franklin’s faults (there are many) he is still entitled to that money from the LPF.
I’m not sure who California’s two candidates are, aside from Johnson/Gray at the top of the ticket. There are certainly NO partisan LP candidates in California. This is only because of the Top Two fiasco. California has had as many as 100 partisan candidates (in 2000) and could have had at least 30 or 40 this year without Top Two. Sadly, it will be hard to hold on to our ballot status in 2014 for the same reason.
No New Mexico LP candidates? Too bad they couldn’t capitalize on their former governor being the presidential nominee.
@14 – the LPNH required nearly 14,000 signature to make the ballot. Also, I believe approximately 1/3 of state LP members will be candidates for office this year!
@19 I don’t know the Florida LP, but what it may be is a lack of people keeping track of elections. In Louisiana, we have to carefully delegate work among people and we have 1 guy who keeps track of every election and seat up for election, no matter how small. One of my jobs is to find people who qualify to run, get them to run, and sometimes, the LP candidate is unopposed. It takes good team work and hard working officers to make it happen.
Florida is one of the easiest states to run local candidates and the LPF can only manage to run 3 candidates?
Oh wait, we had “Liberty Candidates” aka let’s just endorse Republicans who are running
Reed @17.
Great strategy!
Go Louisiana LP!!
Well, we have 100+ offices up for election in 2013. We are watching these very closely and plan to field candidates in as many as possible. Many of these offices only have 0-150 voters that actually vote and many times, these offices go without anyone filing at all for them, so they end up being vacant.
Utah has 12.
Not bad for a state with under 2 million people.
@7 A small organization, in a small state, with a few hard working officers, can elect Libertarians, run candidates, and get out the message.
Good job, all.
However I would be interested in seeing how many candidates many of these states would have if they did not have automatic ballot status.
In New York, it takes 15000 valid signatures to be on the ballot for Senate, 7500 for Mayor of NYC, 3500 for Congress and 3000 for the State Senate.
Perhaps Wes should separate the list into two to demonstrate that getting a dozen people on the ballot in a state which requires them to collectively obtain over 30,000 signatures ain’t no easy thing.
At 11, get more people to vote in the primary. That simple
I suggest also counting Bruce Majors in D.C.
Just city councilmen. meh.
I hate this top two voting system we have in California. It’s as if there is no point in me even working for the CALP because we can’t even get into the general election.
What is a CA libertarian to do?
Sometimes they get in the top two if there is only one duopoly candidate on the ballot in the primary, as does sometimes happen.
How does California have two LP candidates running when we have a top two system? Does that mean that two LP candidates won the primary?
Delaware total is curently 20, and still has a week to increase.
http://elections.delaware.gov/reports/genl_fcddt.shtml
Accidentally hit submit…
Louisiana is a great example of how a small organization in a small state can elect candidates.
As was previously reported here, as well as to the national party, South Carolina initially had seven candidates. One withdrew (employer pressure), and four of the remaining candidates were removed from the ballot along with hundreds of other candidates. This leaves us with one congressional candidate and one statehouse candidate, who, as also reported previously, is facing a petition candidate in his race.
If this list were ordered on a per-capita basis, the numbers reported above and the”ranking” would be significantly different. Many of the smaller states would be listed much higher, since we actually win elections on occasion.
It would also be interesting to rank states based on number of candidates vs. population. 😉
24 if states are counting fusion candidates in their totals.
Oregon has 21 not counting fusion and our presidential line. The national website is a tiny bit out of date.
Dear Texas,
Good job. Watch your back.
Sincerely,
Colorado
Louisiana getting some candidates finally. First time we’ve had this many since 2006. First time we’ve had elected Libertarians…..ever