

Libertarian Mark Wicks Libertarian Mark Wicks

Libertarian Mark Wicks won 6 percent of the vote in Montana’s race for the state’s only U.S. House seat yesterday, demonstrating, once again, that America’s third largest political party is routinely in play in key elections.

While Wicks’ vote fell shy of beating Republican Greg Gianforte’s 7-point lead over Democrat Rob Quist, the fact that Libertarians are regularly pushing up against, or exceeding, margins of victory in U.S. Senate, U.S. House, gubernatorial, and even presidential races makes their presence in elections impossible to ignore.

“The Montana special election results show that a growing number of voters, mostly millennials, are reliably voting Libertarian,” said LP Chair Nicholas Sarwark. “The old parties ignore these results – and the desire for much less government that those votes represent – at their peril.”

Gov. Gary Johnson, the 2016 Libertarian nominee for president, won 3.3 percent of the vote, beating the 2.1 percent difference in popular votes between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

Fourteen Libertarians for U.S. House running against both a Democrat and a Republican won over 5 percent of the vote last November.

“More and more voters are seeing that voting Democrat or Republican equals fewer jobs, endless wars, and paralyzing government red tape,” said Sarwark. “We need a massive downsizing of the federal government to get the economy on track and to restore fundamental human rights. The Libertarian Party is the only party that stands ready to deliver.”