Libertarian Party in Midterms: Not Surprisingly Great, Not Surprisingly Bad

So went the overall assessment of Wes Benedict in a quick
interview tonight. Benedict is currently executive director of the
L.P.’s National Committee, and in my experience tends to be calm
and measured in his assessment of L.P. possibilities, rarely
anticipating results much better than the Party actually gets.

Benedict says tonight they have not yet added up whole numbers
to be sure whether they achieved the midterm record vote total that
third party data maven Richard
Winger predicted, or how they did in comparison with the last
midterm election in general. He was pleased by the relatively
impressive numbers for
Sean Haugh for Senate in North Carolina and for
Adrian Wyllie for governor in Florida—over 120,000 raw votes
for Wyllie—and disappointed that Kathie Glass for governor in Texas
didn’t do better (her percentage actually dipped from her last run
for governor).

Benedict and I shared surprise over the over-4-percent showing
of a candidate on neither of our radar screens, Vermont’s Dan Feliciano for
governor. (Feliciano
pushed  the result to the state legislature, with neither
major party candidate winning a majority.)

Benedict knows of a few states where some candidate did well
enough to guarantee ballot access for the L.P. next time around,
likely including Maryland and North Dakota, which is very important
for a party that otherwise has to spend lots of money and time just
to appear on the ballot.

He says he has not yet begun to get any hate mail accusing the
L.P. of having “spoiled” Ed Gillespie’s Virginia Senate seat for
the GOP via Robert Sarvis, but expects he might start to by
tomorrow morning.

Benedict looks to things like the great results for some

marijuana legalization initiatives to be assured that at least
parts of the libertarian message are resonating with more and more
Americans.