The 2024 presidential election showed signs earlier this year that a third-party candidate could make noise.
But those signs drifted away with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s withdrawal from the race, and voters are now left with few options other than Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.
But one of those options is the Libertarian Party’s candidate for president: Chase Oliver. And he has the potential, along with Green Party candidate Jill Stein, to spoil a state win for either Harris or Trump.
Oliver is just 39 years old, the youngest of the major third-party candidates. He’s from Atlanta and ran there twice as a House candidate in 2020, then a Senate candidate in 2022.
Oliver reached national prominence with his role in his latter run, in which he received 2% of the vote in the Senate race between then-candidates Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker. He debated, without Walker, against Warnock in a face-off hosted by Georgia Public Broadcast in October, gaining him additional exposure.
Oliver’s 2% ultimately helped force a runoff in the Senate election when neither candidate reached 50% of the vote. Warnock would go on to win.
Oliver now has a similar “spoiler” role in the 2024 presidential election. While he has had minimal funding for his presidential campaign — Oliver has raised just under $450,000 for his campaign — at least one Democratic group has reportedly spent significant funds to boost him in hopes that voters will see him as an alternative to Trump.
Civic Truth Action has pushed Oliver to the tune of more than $1.5 million in YouTube ads touting him as a “true conservative” who wants to abolish the income tax, not dissimilar from a platform Trump has taken verbally. The super PAC’s largest backer is the Democratic-owned Evidence for Impact.
While Stein is generally thought to take votes away from Harris’s progressive and far-left flank, Oliver could chip away at Trump’s support from libertarian-aligned voters. It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has been hurt by a libertarian candidate in the presidential election.
In 2020, Libertarian candidate Jo Jorgensen drew more support than President Joe Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. Jorgensen received her highest vote totals, all above 2% of the vote, in eight different Republican-won states. Some libertarian ideals, like no income tax and minimal gun regulation, appeal to conservatives.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Oliver could serve to spoil Georgia, a slight Republican-leaning state, for Trump. A recent New York Times poll of Georgia showed him nabbing 2% support in the state, causing a 46%-46% tie between Harris and Trump.
Georgia could be where Oliver makes his largest impact. He’d likely draw support away from Trump, and a Harris win in the state makes it much more difficult for the Republican to win the election.