Poll Predicts Libertarian Spoiler in North Carolina Senate Race

A new survey
of likely voters in North Carolina raises the
prospect of yet another libertarian “spoiler” candidate.

The CNN/ORC International poll has Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)
pulling 46 percent of votes and Republican challenger Thom Tillis
43 percent, with a 4 percent margin of error. However, the poll
also has Libertarian candidate Sean Haugh polling at 7 percent of
the vote. If this proves to be an accurate prediction of election
results, it will undoubtedly lead to Sean Haugh being labelled a
“spoiler” by whichever side ends election night with a concession
speech.

Haugh credits his strong poll numbers to an increased awareness
of the libertarian brand, a significant change from when he ran for
Senate in 2002. “‘Libertarian’ is a household word now,” he told
The Washington Post. “Everybody knows what it means.”

So who
is Sean Haugh? According to the Post’s July
profile, Haugh is a 53-year-old pizza deliveryman who “comes across
as both folksy and erudite, funny and earnest”.

Aside from candid explanations of
his views, Haugh is also known to engage in extremely open
dialogue on Facebook. This recently lead to a confrontation with
one of his critics, who he described as an “ignorant moron”.
From The
Daily Caller:

After getting into an argument over whether his presence in the
race just helps Hagan, Haugh said to the voter: “Well, obviously
our realities are quite detached. I prefer my reality over yours
because logic, reason and evidence exist in mine. I pity ignorant
morons such as yourself and wish you would stop voting.”

Haugh also said: “I have learned that there is no value in
explaining to an idiot why they are being an idiot, because,
y’know, they’re too stupid to understand anything.”

Haugh told the Post he was motivated to run against
Hagan and Tillis because he “couldn’t stand the idea of walking
into the voting booth and just seeing the Democrat and the
Republican on the ballot.” 

This gets at something political partisans like Ann Coulter fail
to understand when they complain about voters straying from the
Republican/Democrat duopoly: Election victory at all costs holds
little appeal to people who oppose the policies of both main
parties. It is also the height of arrogance for any side of
politics to claim ownership over a particular set of votes, which
is clearly implied when third-party candidates are said to have
“taken” votes away from Republicans or Democrats. If these
politicians want libertarians to vote for them, then they should be
less hostile to libertarian values.   

In the mean time, it appears Ann Coulter will be spending a lot
of time tracking
down libertarian voters in North Carolina—after she
drowns Reason’s Ron Bailey first, that is.