The Libertarian Party has chosen 38-year-old Chase Oliver as its 2024 presidential nominee.
An openly gay former Democrat who once supported Barack Obama, Oliver used his victory speech to rail against the U.S. “war machine” and demand an end to the “genocide in Gaza,” according to the Washington Examiner.
After author Michael Rectenwald was eliminated from the race during Sunday night’s voting, the final vote was between Oliver and “none of the above,” in which he ultimately prevailed with around 60 percent support. He announced economist Mike ter Maat as his running mate.
The delegates have selected Chase Oliver as the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate. pic.twitter.com/M8c5IhKWez
— Libertarian Party (@LPNational) May 27, 2024
Politico reports:
Oliver — who is aligned with a more traditionalist faction of the Libertarian Party, the Classical Liberal Caucus — clinched the nomination after almost 8 hours and seven rounds of voting. He defeated a more hard-line Mises Caucus candidate by less than 1 percent in the penultimate round of voting, before delegates were asked to choose between Oliver and no candidate.
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Oliver said his foray into politics came as an anti-war protester in the early 2000s, and that he plans to target young voters angry about the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses, Twitch and TikTok.
“We were looking at who are the most likely populations to be ready to go outside of the two-party system, and we’ve identified young people, and in particular, those who are upset with the war going on in Gaza, upset with the immigration crisis, and upset with cost of living,” Oliver said. “Those are the young people that we’re going to target.”
Also on the ballot was independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, although he was eliminated druing the first round of voting.
If Oliver had not been selected, the party would have faced difficulties getting a candidate on the ballot in November’s presidential election.
A former sales and HR executive, Oliver was a relatively obscure figure until his unsuccessful run for the U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2022, when he won just two per cent of the vote.
According to his website, Oliver’s policies include open borders, promotion of gun rights, decriminlizaing drugs, low taxation and opposition to all U.S. involvement in foreign wars.