Biography

Gary Johnson was governor of New Mexico and twice the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee.

The Vote

The FEC’s official compilations give the numbers without interpretation:

  • 2012: 1,275,971 votes
  • 2016: 4,489,341 votes, 3.28% of the national popular vote

The 2016 figure is more than three times the 2012 one, in an election where the two major-party nominees took 48.18% and 46.09%. His running mate that year was William “Bill” Weld; the FEC registers the committee under both names.

He ran again in 2018, as the Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate in New Mexico.

Digital Political Impact

  • The largest third-party presidential vote of the social-media era, in the election where dissatisfaction with both major nominees was most measurable
  • A case study in the ceiling rather than the potential of third-party campaigning online: a fourfold increase in raw votes still produced a 3.28% share
  • Moved between parties — Republican governor, Libertarian nominee — which is the kind of trajectory that becomes legible only when a candidate has an independent audience

What Is Not Established Here

Removed in the citation audit: his birth year; his dates as the 29th governor of New Mexico (1995-2003); his business career; and the claim that he “received the highest third-party vote share since 1996”. That comparison would require checking every intervening cycle against the FEC’s records, which was not done in this pass; the 2016 and 2012 figures are given instead.

Sources

  1. 01.

    Federal Election Commission. Federal Elections 2016: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. (2017). The FEC's official compilation of state-certified results. National popular vote, 2016: Gary Johnson (Libertarian, Independence, Independent) 4,489,341 votes, 3.28%. The same table records Hillary Clinton at 65,853,514 (48.18%), Donald Trump at 62,984,828 (46.09%) and Jill Stein at 1,457,218 (1.07%).

    www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2016.pdf
  2. 02.

    Federal Election Commission. Federal Elections 2012: Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. (2013). National popular vote, 2012: Gary Johnson (Libertarian, Independent) 1,275,971 votes.

    www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/federalelections2012.pdf
  3. 03.

    Federal Election Commission. Candidate records for Gary Johnson (P20002671, S8NM00226). Retrieved through the OpenFEC API. The presidential committee is registered as 'JOHNSON, GARY / WILLIAM "BILL" WELD' (P20002671), Libertarian Party, for the 2012 and 2016 election years. A separate record shows him as a Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate in New Mexico in 2018 (S8NM00226).

    www.fec.gov/data/candidates/?q=gary+johnson