The first Libertarian National Convention was held in June 1972. In 1978, Dick Randolph of Alaska became the first elected Libertarian state legislator. Following the 1980 federal elections, the Libertarian Party assumed the title of being the third-largest party for the first time after the American Independent Party and the Conservative Party of New York (the other largest minor parties at the time) continued to decline. In 1994, over 40 Libertarians were elected or appointed, which was a record for the party at that time. 1995 saw a soaring membership and voter registration for the party. In 1996, the Libertarian Party became the first third party to earn ballot status in all 50 states two presidentialelections in a row.
In the 2012 Presidential election, Libertarian candidate and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson received over 1.2 million votes, the highest for any Libertarian to date. He was renominated for president in 2016, this time choosing former Massachusetts Governor William “Bill” Weld as his running mate. Johnson/Weld shattered the Libertarian record for a presidential ticket, earning over 4.4 million votes. In the 2016 Presidential election, Gary Johnson won over 4.4 million votes (3.3% of the total), the highest for any Libertarian before or since. Johnson was particularly popular in Johnson's home state of New Mexico, earning 9.3% of the vote. Both Johnson and Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein received significantly more news coverage in 2016 than third-party candidates usually get, with polls showing both candidates potentially increasing their support over the last election, especially among younger voters.
The Libertarian Party contains several major factions with competing visions. In 2022, the paleolibertarianMises Caucus (LPMC) won a majority on the Libertarian National Committee and shifted the party in a fiscal- and social-conservative direction. The change resulted in internal conflicts and significant policy changes. Several state chapters distanced or disavowed themselves of the National Committee and formed their own independent state-level parties. Other defectors formed the Classical Liberal Caucus and Liberal Party USA. In 2024, Mises won again. In 2025, "unity" candidate Steven Nekhaila was elected as party Chair. In 2026, anti-Mises candidates won. The new LNC disaffiliated the Mises-leaning Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, which had endorsed Donald Trump over Chase Oliver in 2024 and endorsed assassinating elected Democrats. LPNH leader Jeremy Kauffman appealed, which the LNC unanimously denied.
The party's platform preamble outlines the party's goals: "As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others." The platform emphasizes individual liberty in personal and economic affairs and avoidance of "foreign entanglements".
The Libertarian Party supports laissez-fairecapitalism and the abolition of the modern welfare state. It adopts pro-civil liberties and pro-cultural liberal approaches to cultural and social issues. Paul H. Rubin, professor of law and economics at Emory University, believes that while liberalDemocrats generally seek to control economic activities and conservativeRepublicans generally seek to control consumption activities such as sexual behavior, abortion and so on, the Libertarian Party is the largest political party in the United States that advocates few or no regulations in what it deems "social" and "economic" issues.
Economic issues
Libertarian protester at the 2010 Tea Party tax day, St. Paul, Minnesota
The LP opposes US intervention abroad, seeking "peace with all nations, entangling alliances with none". The LP supports cutting all foreign aid and withdrawing all American troops. The LP supports US withdrawal from NATO.
Structure and composition
The Libertarian Party is democratically governed by its members, with state affiliate parties each holding annual or biennial conventions at which delegates are elected to attend the party's biennial national convention. National convention delegates vote on changes to the party's national platform and bylaws and elect officers and "at-large" representatives to the party's National Committee. The National Committee also has "regional representatives", some of whom are appointed by delegate caucuses at the national convention whereas others are appointed by the chairpersons of LP state affiliate chapters within a region.
Individuals can join the Libertarian Party by signing their agreement with the organization's non-aggression pledge. Therefore, some Libertarian Party donors are not necessarily "members", because the party has defined a "member" since its founding as someone who agrees with the party's membership statement. The Libertarian Party reported 138,815 signature members in December 2017.
Members can pay dues, currently at $25 per year or $1,500 for a lifetime. Most participation and voting rights are restricted to dues-paying and lifetime members. Dues to join the Committee to Form a Libertarian Party in 1971 were $2, which gradually increased to $15 for basic membership in the party in 1984.[citation needed] In 1991 dues were increased to $25, where they remain as of 2026[update].[citation needed] The Libertarian Party reported 14,445 dues-paying and life members in December 2017, and 9,348 in October 2025.
In 2006, national party membership was separated from state affiliate party membership, with each state maintaining its own membership rolls. Most state parties require dues payment, while some require voter registration as a Libertarian.
Registered voters
As of July 2026[update] the Libertarian Party has 695,779 (0.55%) registered voters, the third-highest in the United States. California has the most registered Libertarians, at 231,107 (1.00%), while Kansas has the highest proportion, at 23,781 (1.18%).
In 2009, the Libertarian Party claimed 146 Libertarians in elected offices. In 2017, it claimed 168 Libertarians in elected offices, 58 partisan and 110 non-partisan. In addition, some party members were elected to public office on other party lines but explicitly retained their Libertarian Party membership.[citation needed] For example, US Representative Ron Paul has repeatedly stated that he remains a life member of the Libertarian Party.[citation needed]
The Libertarian Party has had limited electoral success at the state legislature and local level. Since the party's creation, 10 Libertarians have been elected to state legislatures and some other state legislators have switched parties after being originally elected as Republicans or Democrats. The Libertarian Party has never won a statewide or federal election.
In 2018, Jeff Hewitt, the mayor of Calimesa, California was elected to the Riverside County Board of Supervisors in a close race. Serving from 2019 to 2023, including 1-year stints as chair & vice-chair of the board from 2021 to 2023, Hewitt was considered the most powerful Libertarian elected official in California and in the United States during his tenure.
State legislatures
The Libertarian Party has had limited electoral success in state legislatures. Libertarians have been elected as state representatives without a major party cross-endorsement six times: Dick Randolph in Alaska in 1978, Ken Fanning and Randolph again in Alaska in 1980, Andre Marrou in Alaska in 1984, Steve Vaillancourt in New Hampshire in 2000, and in 2020, Marshall Burt received 54% of the vote in a two-way race in Wyoming's 39th House district in the Wyoming House of Representatives.
Several Libertarians have won election to state legislative offices on an electoral fusion line with a major party. For example, in 1992, Don Gorman and Andy Borsa won election to the New Hampshire House on a Libertarian-Republican fusion ballot. Similarly, in 1998, Neil Randall won election to the Vermont House of Representatives on a Libertarian-Republican fusion ballot. As of 2020[update], there have also been 67 candidates elected with a Libertarian and a major party cross endorsement: 37 in New Hampshire in 1992, 5 in New Hampshire in 1994, 4 in New Hampshire in 1996, 1 in Vermont in 1998, 5 in Oregon in 2014, 4 in Oregon in 2018, 4 in Oregon in 2020, and 7 in New York in 2020.[citation needed] There have been 14 candidates elected to state senate who had a Libertarian and major party cross endorsement: 1 in New Hampshire in 1992, 6 in New Hampshire in 1994, 3 in New Hampshire in 1996, 1 in Oregon in 2014, 1 in Oregon in 2018, 1 in New York in 2019, and 1 in New York in 2020.[citation needed]
Defections from other parties
Representative Justin Amash, the first Libertarian member of Congress
After presidential candidate Donald Trump won Indiana's 2016 Republican primary, several Republican officeholders left the Party and changed their affiliation to the Libertarian Party. In January 2016, the first to switch to the Libertarian Party was Nevada Assembly member John Moore. Moore was censured by the Libertarian Party after he supported of taxpayer subsidies to build a stadium. Moore was defeated for re-election in 2016. In May 2016, nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature member Laura Ebke announced her displeasure with the Republican Party and announced she was registering as a Libertarian. Ebke ran for re-election and lost. In July, Utah State Senate member Mark B. Madsen switched to Libertarian. In the 2016 election cycle, Madsen Madsen did not seek re-election. In May 2016, New Hampshire House member Max Abramson switched from Republican to Libertarian before running as the party's gubernatorial candidate instead of seeking re-election.
From February to June 2017, three New Hampshire House of Representatives members left the Republican or Democratic party and joined the Libertarian Party. Caleb Q. Dyer switched from Republican to Libertarian in February 2017, Joseph Stallcop from Democratic in May 2017, and Brandon Phinney from Republican in June 2017. The 2016 and 2017 defection waves each brought the Libertarian Party to its highest number of state legislature officials since 1992.
In April 2020, Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, who was first elected as a Republican, became the first and only Libertarian member of Congress after changing his party affiliation first to Independent, then to Libertarian.
After choosing not to seek re-election, Amash joined the Libertarian Party in 2020 and left the U.S. House of Representatives in 2021. In June 2020, Amash, with Ayanna Pressley of the Democratic Party, introduced the Ending Qualified Immunity Act in response to the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The bill was the first to gain support of members from the Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties in the history of the United States Congress.
Several politicians joined the Libertarian Party, sometimes only briefly, after having left office, including former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, former Massachusetts Governor William Weld, former Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee, former Alaska United States Senator Mike Gravel, former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr, and former Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
The first Libertarian presidential candidate, John Hospers, received one electoral vote in 1972 when Roger MacBride, a VirginiaRepublicanfaithless elector pledged to Richard Nixon, cast his ballot for the Libertarian ticket. His vote for Theodora ("Tonie") Nathan as vice president was the first electoral college vote ever to be cast for a woman in a United States presidential election. MacBride became the Libertarian presidential nominee himself in 1976. This was the last time that the Libertarian Party won an electoral vote until 44 years later, in the 2016 presidential election, when Texas Republican faithless elector Bill Greene, who was pledged to cast his vote for Donald Trump, instead cast his vote for former Libertarian presidential nominee, and former Republican representative Ron Paul for president.
A longstanding debate within the party is one referred to by libertarians as the anarchist–minarchist debate. In 1974, anarchists and minarchists within the party agreed to officially take no position on whether or not government should exist at all and to not advocate either particular view. This agreement has become known as the Dallas Accord, having taken place at the party's convention that year in Dallas, Texas.
Libertarian members often cite the departure of Ed Crane (of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank) as a key turning point in the early party history. Crane (who in the 1970s had been the party's first executive director) and some of his allies resigned from the party in 1983 when their preferred candidates for national committee seats lost in the elections at the national convention. Others like Mary Ruwart say that despite this apparent victory of those favoring radicalism, the party has for decades been slowly moving away from those ideals.
In the mid-2000s, groups such as the Libertarian Party Reform Caucus generally advocated revising the party's platform, eliminating or altering the membership statement and focusing on a politics-oriented approach aimed at presenting libertarianism to voters in what they deemed a "less threatening" manner. LPRadicals emerged in response and was active at the 2008 and 2010Libertarian National Conventions. In its most recent incarnation, the Libertarian Party Radical Caucus was founded with the stated goal to "support the re-radicalization of the LP."
At the 2016 Libertarian National Convention, the Radical Caucus endorsed Darryl W. Perry for President and Will Coley for Vice President, who respectively won 7% and 10% of the vote on the first ballot, both taking fourth place. Though not explicitly organized as such, most self-identified pragmatists or moderates supported the nomination of Gary Johnson for president and Bill Weld for vice president. Johnson and Weld were both nominated on the second ballot with a narrow majority after having both placed just shy of the required 50% on the first ballots. After the convention, the Libertarian Pragmatist Caucus ("LPC") was founded and organized with the goal "[t]o promote realistic, pragmatic, and practical libertarian candidates and solutions." LPC supported Nicholas Sarwark in his successful bid for re-election as chair of the party's national committee at the 2018 convention in New Orleans.
Free State Project versus Mises Caucus
Proponents of the Free State Project, a movement dedicated to concentrating libertarians in the state of New Hampshire, argue that the Libertarian Party strategy of a national victory has been proven ineffective in stark contrast to libertarian concentration and focus on local races in New Hampshire. The founder of the Free State movement, Jason Sorens, stated in the movement's announcement, "Partisan politics has clearly failed: Libertarian presidential candidates consistently fail to break the one per cent barrier, while no Libertarian candidate has ever won election to a federal office."
At Porcfest 2021, an annual libertarian festival held in New Hampshire, Executive Director of the Free State Project (Jeremy Kauffman) and chair of the Libertarian Party (Angela McArdle) debated which strategy is more effective. Kauffman argued that, "There are more people in this room that are elected members to the NH House of Representatives and former members of the Libertarian Party than there are Libertarian Party members nationwide." Meanwhile, Angela McArdle argued that while she wants to see the Free State Project succeed, she argues that the Free State Project could not have existed without the political infrastructure provided by the LP developed over the course of five decades.
12Voter registration rank excludes the many different "Independent" parties, with which many voters register in error, and which usually do not run any competitive candidates.
↑During the mid-1980s and into the early 1990s, the pledge-based membership category was called an "instant" membership, now referred to as "signature members".
12Wilbur, Miller (2012). "Libertarianism". The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. Vol.3. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. pp.1006–1007. ISBN978-1-4129-8876-6. While right-libertarianism has been equated with libertarianism in general in the United States, left-libertarianism has become a more predominant aspect of politics in western European democracies over the past three decades. ... Since the 1950s, libertarianism in the United States has been associated almost exclusively with right-libertarianism ... As such, right-libertarianism in the United States remains a fruitful discourse with which to articulate conservative claims, even as it lacks political efficacy as a separate ideology.
12Carlson, Jennifer D. (2012). "Libertarianism". In Miller, Wilburn R., ed. The Social History of Crime and Punishment in America. London: Sage Publications. p. 1006Archived 7 February 2024 at the Wayback Machine. ISBN1412988764.
↑Franks, Benjamin (2013). "Anarchism". In Sargent, Lyman Tower; Stears, Marc; Freeden, Michael (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (1sted.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p.389. ISBN978-0-19-958597-7. LCCN2013938773.
↑Grigsby, Ellen (2011). "Neoclassical Liberals". In Ishiyama, John T.; Breuning, Marijke (eds.). 21st Century Political Science A Reference Handbook. SAGE Publications. p.603. ISBN978-1483305462.
12Stall, Bill (October 13, 1986). "Bully for Minor Party Candidates". Los Angeles Times. p.B5. Archived from the original on November 7, 2012. Retrieved July 6, 2017. There is Norma Jean Almodovar, the former Los Angeles prostitute running on the Libertarian Party ticket.
12"Prostitutes before pimps". Salon. After the meeting, Liu got into a friendly debate with Starchild—this is the Bay Area, folks!—a well-known sex worker and outreach director for the local Libertarian Party.
↑"National Platform 1972". lpedia.org. 1972. Archived from the original on 2021-12-23. Retrieved 2022-05-31. Domestic Ills section part 3. Overpopulation: "... We further support the repeal of all laws restricting voluntary birth control or voluntary termination of pregnancies during their first hundred days. ...
↑"2020 Platform". Libertarian Party. July 7, 2020. Archived from the original on May 31, 2022. Plank 1.5 Abortion: Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
↑"2022 Platform". Libertarian Party. May 29, 2022. Archived from the original on November 27, 2022. [No mention of abortion.]
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