A Libertarian candidate running in the high-stakes race for a Georgia U.S. Senate seat could force the marquee matchup between Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP challenger Herschel Walker into a runoff and possibly upend the race if he siphons enough votes away from the front-runners.
The Warnock-Walker contest is one of the most followed in the country, and its winner could determine which party controls the U.S. Senate next year.
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The 2020 presidential election changed the playing field in the once ruby-red state. President Joe Biden beat former President Donald Trump, and two Senate races were decided in runoffs.
Republicans have traditionally dominated runoffs in the state, but Democrats Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff won theirs, becoming the newest Democratic senators from the newly contentious battleground state.
Georgia is now up for grabs, and both major parties have been funneling millions of dollars into the Senate race to make sure their candidate carries the state.
One hurdle facing them is Chase Oliver, a Libertarian who has been polling between 3.4% and 5% in the race.
Under Georgia law, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote on Election Day, the top two contenders will face off in a second election on Dec. 6.
The latest polls in Georgia (a Landmark Communications poll, an Insider Advantage survey, and an Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Georgia News Collaborative poll) all show Warnock and Walker in a statistical dead heat with the margins of error factored in. Those polls also show that neither candidate has the 50% plus one vote needed to avoid a runoff.
The polling underscores the challenge Walker and Warnock face and the consequential role Oliver, who is seeking to become Georgia’s first LGBT candidate elected to Congress, could play if he pulls enough votes away from the two candidates on Nov. 8.
If Oliver is able to garner enough of the vote, Georgia would face a repeat of 2021’s runoffs, when Ossoff and Warnock helped Democrats nab narrow control in the Senate.
But Oliver could also play the role of spoiler on Nov. 8. In Ossoff’s matchup against Sen. David Perdue, the Republican fell just shy of the 50% threshold, taking home 49.7% of the vote to Ossoff’s 47.9%, but he went on to lose to Ossoff in the runoff.
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Previously, Oliver lost a 2020 special election to replace the late Rep. John Lewis. He told Fox Business he has been a Libertarian for more than a decade and is “pretty used to both the parties not really liking me and thinking that I am somehow spoiling an election when I’m just providing a choice for voters.”
“I think I am earning votes across the spectrum,” he said. “I have spoken to people who normally vote as a Democrat, who are happy to talk about justice reform, and Republican voters who are happy to talk about gun rights and making it easier to start a small business, and of course, there are those Libertarian voters who just like freedom and liberty and all that good stuff. I feel like I pull from everywhere and I am happy to earn those votes.”
Oliver said he’s knocked on more than 1,000 Georgia doors over the past month and has heard voters express frustration that they are being ignored by Warnock and Warner.
Democratic strategist David McLaughlin told the Washington Examiner Oliver may be siphoning more voters from Walker, who has been hit with a wave of controversy over the past few weeks stemming from accusations that he paid for a former girlfriend to have an abortion, which he has denied, as well as falsehoods about his work with law enforcement and education, as well as multiple domestic abuse allegations.
“It definitely stands to reason that some Republican-leaning voters are looking for a safety hatch to keep them from voting for Herschel Walker,” he said. “However, Chase Oliver has kept an extremely low profile. I think witness protection might start having people become Chase Oliver’s campaign staff.”
Erik Iverson, a pollster for Walker’s campaign, told the Washington Free Beacon that he believes the votes Oliver is pulling could have an impact on the race.
Oliver appeals to “soft Republican” voters who probably believe his positions are akin to those of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul but are, in fact, much more liberal. Oliver, for example, believes in ending cash bail, open borders, and a woman’s right to choose.
The Libertarian Party of Georgia has candidates running for senator, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, attorney general, commissioner of agriculture, and commissioner of labor. All are polling below 10%.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock found that Oliver had the support of 5.2% of self-described Republicans, 5.4% of independents, and 0.9% of Democrats.
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“Republican voters have qualms about voting for Herschel Walker, they’re not going to vote for Raphael Warnock, and so they can safely park their vote there with a libertarian,” Bullock told WABE. “They don’t have to make a hard choice between a Republican about whom they have serious concerns and a Democrat whose policies they reject.”
