Earlier this month, U.S. Representative Justin Amash (I-MI) made the surprising announcement that he was “carefully consider[ing] a presidential run” and that he had paused his Congressional campaign in mid-February to investigate the prospects of a national campaign.

Amash has otherwise been focused on his re-election campaign in Michigan’s third congressional district. He is slated to run for the first time since renouncing his Republican Party membership in July 2019 and therefore face off in the general election against members of both major parties.

Despite his advantage as an incumbent, his victory would be anything but certain, as independents have rarely been successful in modern-era Congressional elections. Only three Independent candidates have won election to the House since 1952.

Amash ultimately left the GOP after repeated clashes with the ever-enlarging Trump wing of the party. Amash had been elected to the U.S. Congress in the first wave of the Tea Party in 2010, emerging with a plurality from a five-person primary before easily cruising to November victory with nearly sixty percent of the vote.

The Michigan Congressman quickly separated himself from the rest of his party and Congress as a whole, as he has missed but one of 5,374 roll votes and has offered expansive explanations for each of his votes on social media. His rebelliousness was largely tolerated by Republican leaders due to much of his ire being directed at President Obama.

However, Amash also frequently targeted House Speakers Boehner and Ryan when criticizing wasteful spending, infringement of personal liberties, and needless foreign interventionism.

This tension led to a primary challenge launched by the Republican Establishment and in particular former Congressman Pete Hoekstra. The candidate they selected to face Amash was former East Grand Rapids School Trustee Brian Ellis in 2014, whose campaign employed xenophobic and fear-mongering tactics against Amash.

After winning by fifteen points, Amash stated that Ellis owed his family an apology and he “ran for office to stop people like” him. He also said of Hoekstra, “You are a disgrace. And I’m glad we could hand you one more loss before you fade into total obscurity and irrelevance.”

After seven years of what could only be described as a prickly relationship with the Republican Party, Amash became one of very few vocal party critics of President Donald Trump, even separating himself from longtime allies Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) with his vocal stances.

Trump continued to grow government in the same way as Obama before him and abuse the powers of his office, and Amash gained national attention when he became the only Republican in the House who stated he would vote to impeach Trump for his attempts to have the Ukraine publish damaging information on presidential contender Joe Biden. Amash’s stance of course led to negative tweets from the President, and on July 4, 2019, Amash finally left the party.

Now, less than a decade after his national political career began, outside onlookers once again await his decision. Although Amash had been asked about presidential aspirations often in the last four years and had repeatedly refused to rule out a run, as May 2020 approached, it seemed he had quietly made his decision.

However, after his announcement that he has ramped up interest in the 2020 presidential race, the Libertarian Party, a party of which Amash has never been a member, waits with baited breath.

During the 2016 presidential election, the Libertarians ran a ticket consisting of former Republican governors Gary Johnson and Bill Weld, and that duo earned 4.5 million votes and 3.3% of the national vote. Both numbers were exponentially higher than any prior Libertarian campaign, and the best of any third-party since Ross Perot’s second attempt at the White House in 1996.

While it was difficult for Libertarians to not be disappointed, in particular at the fact that their candidates failed to receive invitations to the nationally-televised debates, Johnson and Weld set the table for successes for other Libertarian candidates in 2016 and 2018.

Although Weld was considered to be the early favorite to seek out and win the 2020 Libertarian nomination, he instead decided to run against Trump in the Republican primary. Through his campaign, Weld perhaps reinforced what Amash had established the year prior: this is now Trump’s party. Multiple states cancelled their primaries, while others refused to list any candidates other than Trump.

Weld’s departure from the party left a serious void in the need for a presidential candidate who had the accolades to build upon what Johnson had done in his presidential runs in 2012 and 2016. While former U.S. Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee launched a run, his campaign lasted only three months, and that notwithstanding, his 2016 Democratic campaign likely sealed his fate already, due to his inability to poll above 1% and his most memorable moment being a debate slam at the hands of moderator Anderson Cooper.

Now, the leading contender for the Libertarian nomination is 70-year-old Jacob Hornberger, most notable as the founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation and third-place finisher in both the 2000 Libertarian presidential primary and the 2002 U.S. Senate election in Virginia. Hornberger has won six of ten non-binding primary contests in the Libertarian primary.

His biggest competition comes from former presiding judge for the Superior Court of Orange County, California, the 75-year-old Jim Gray. Gray also was the party’s vice presidential nominee in 2012, seconding Gary Johnson. Gray announced his candidacy on April 13, indicating he would run alongside Larry Sharpe, himself a 2016 runner-up for the Libertarian vice presidential nomination and Libertarian nominee for governor of New York in 2018.

Gray figures to be the natural heir to the Johnson-Weld mold of the party, but even Johnson himself stated that Gray’s inability to garner national attention held back the Libertarian ticket in 2012 (one of the reasons Johnson so strongly advocated for Weld in 2016).

Though Gray/Sharpe is indeed the most electorally successful ticket of the current bunch, they figure to have a difficult time topping or even matching the Johnson/Gray 2012 totals of roughly 1.275 million votes and 1%. Hornberger figures to have slightly worse expectations, particularly given the current lack of certainty surrounding his running mate.

Enter Justin Amash.

The Michigan Congressman has the opportunity to enter the Libertarian convention (if only virtually, given the COVID-19 crisis) as a savior of the party. As a half-Syrian, half-Palestinian son of immigrants, he would inject needed diversity into the race between Biden and Trump.

He has already gained national acclaim for his opposition to Trump, and his principles are difficult to attack as being anything other genuine. As a forty-year-old, he would also bring youth to a race between two near-octogenarians.

There are a few schisms between Amash’s beliefs and the Libertarian Party platform (namely on abortion, as Amash is ardently pro-life and the party platform sits somewhere between agnostic and pro-choice). He also has not made as many public declarations on immigration, which is sure to be a hot-button issue, and the Libertarian Party supports open borders.

None of these issues withstanding, unlike Johnson and particularly Weld, each of whom had to survive multiple ballots in 2016, Amash would figure to be a near-lock should he seek the nomination. In switching his party to Libertarian, he would also become the first such member of the U.S. House of Representatives, although he would not be able to run for re-election.

If Amash could find a mainstream running mate, particularly one who would bring diversity to the ticket (namely former House colleague Mia Love (R-UT) or former Lieutenant Governor Jenean Hampton (R-KY)), it is difficult to imagine how he would not once again garner national attention. While debate inclusion would never be a guarantee, a sitting Congressman running alongside one of these two would be difficult to exclude from national narratives.

Amash’s run could for four more years guarantee that the Libertarian Party could continue to build its brand and recruit new people into its ranks. With a good enough run, Amash could do what Johnson did in 2016 and help out future Libertarian candidates in reaching success.

The primary target for Amash would of course be his home state of Michigan, but he could also perform well in the midwest, and in particular Utah, which gave about 22% of its votes to Independent Evan McMullin and another 3.5% to Gary Johnson. Trump will in effect be running in Utah against Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who famously voted to remove Trump from office and enjoys significant support in Utah, having won nearly 63% of the vote in 2018.

Now, the final decision belongs to Amash and him alone. His final answer could change American politics for years to come.