When it comes to the legislative elections next year, Wake County is going to be a major battleground. The Democratic Party chairman there says his goal is to win at least four of the five competitive seats in the county. It’s a lofty goal, but with presidential turnout and changing demographics, anything can happen.
This year, Democrats are also getting some unlikely assistance from the Libertarian Party. It seems they’re making a priority of Wake County, too. Of the eight Libertarians who have filed for the General Assembly so far, all but one are running in Wake. And there are still a few more from Wake who have yet to file.
Not all of the Libertarians have filed for competitive, Republican-held seats, though. Democrats Duane Hall and Yvonne Holley are getting Libertarian challengers as well. In the end, this could turn out to be these legislators’ only opposition, and therefore an opportunity for the third party to make their best showings.
However, it’s likely Libertarians will be most influential in five GOP-held, competitive districts in the county. Those are Senate Districts 15 (held by John Alexander), 17 (held by Tamara Barringer), House Districts 36 (held by Nelson Dollar), 37 (held by Paul Stam, retiring), and 49 (held by Gary Pendleton). Alexander and Pendleton’s races last year were incredibly close and had a Libertarian been on the ballot, they might not be serving today.
In addition, Libertarians are running candidates for governor and U.S. Senate. The Senate candidate is a familiar name to North Carolina political observers – pizza delivery driver Sean Haugh, who won almost 4% of the vote last time around. Haugh proved a minor headache for Tillis and the Republicans last year, and these Libertarians could cause problems for Wake Republicans too. In races determined by just a percentage point or two, their mere presence in the race could be critical – possibly helping Democrats turn over the GOP’s veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate.
John Wynne is the “conservative voice” at PoliticsNC, where he also provides polling analysis and commentary on legislative campaigns. When not writing about politics, he enjoys gardening and listening to opera. Contact: johncwynne@gmail.com.
I feel so sorry for people who think the Democrats and Republicans own all the voters, and somehow Libertarians are just their puppets who couldn’t possibly be, y’know, thinking for themselves. It’s a conspiracy theory that’s just as unhinged as ranting about birth certificates or the Illuminati or something.
Having a vested interest in this matter, we Libertarians have studied this phenomenon closely in general, and I have for my own 2014 showing. I got 3.74% of the vote. Of that, about 2-2.25% is my ‘base,’ of both yellow dog Libertarians and protest voters. I have no real way of distinguishing the two but they are functionally the same here. In this group, it generally spilts evenly if the Libertarian weren’t on the ballot – 1/3rd each to the Democrat, the Republican and not voting at all. Any variations from that would take a touch more from the generic Republican than the Democrat – maybe 60/40. So that segment of the voters would’ve given Tillis a very small boost, in the range of 0%-0.3%, if I had not been in the race.
That leaves 1.5-1.75% of the voters who chose me, I presume because they actually knew who I was and cast a positive vote for me. What little post-election polling I could find indicates that those voters might have split 3-1 for Hagan if I hadn’t been on the ballot. Which adds up to maybe 1% or a touch more.
Given that Tillis beat Hagan by 1.6%, while the data could be stronger it’s still pretty safe to say Tillis would’ve still won in a 2 way race.
I do find it really funny when people question my libertarianism. It’s even better (worse really, as in arrogantly clueless) when people try to mansplain what libertarianism is to me. Truth is, underneath my own rather liberal worldview, just below the surface you’ll find I’m pretty much 100% LP party line. I’m just what happens when someone is raised in a household where the political icons are Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King. Truth is, we libertarians just don’t fit in with the liberal-conservative paradigm. I just look like a liberal to people who falsely believe we all live in that world, because I focus on issues that are traditionally seen as being from the left. If I had run more on economic issues, you’d be saying I was a right-wing extremist.
Libertarians are a convenient and effective vote splitting tool that the GOP extreme Right has learned to utilize under the tutorship ot the Koch brothers.
primarily used to peel the college age young adults off the Liberal side of the voter block. For instance I noted that many college Libertarian activists transfered to area colleges from out of state in time for the Kay Hagan/tills debacle.and transfered back after the election. had the libertarian vote gone to KAY instead of Tillis since colleges age tend to vote democratic Kay would have won by about 13%
The NRC chairman had said as much, in a interview, that they use the libertarians to indoctrinate college student into conservative ideology.
Haugh was one of those liberals trying to masquerade as a libertarian. At least after watching all his videos, its how he came across to me. Seriously, there’s a lot more to being a libertarian than loving abortion, gay marriage and smoking weed’.
An underlying assumption in your article is that Libertarian candidates take votes away from Republican candidates rather than Democratic candidates. That might be the effect, however I’ve never seen any data to show that this assumption is accurate. What data indicates the accuracy of this assumption?
I wonder if people mistakenly equate Libertarians with Tea Partiers or Ross Perot-type parties. That misconception would (erroneously) support the view that Libertarians take Republican votes.
PPP consistently found that, when Haugh was removed from race, Tillis was the one who benefited.
Libertarians are more inclined to vote for republican agendas they wont be doing us any favors….I hope the Democrats get off their butts and start campaining…..We got to take our state back from these crooked assBags.