Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson said on Friday he thinks the Republican Party is dying, and if he doesn’t win the presidency he hopes to bring about the end of the two-party system.
Johnson, running as a third-party alternative to GOP nominee Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, told University of Chicago students he believes the end of the GOP is fast approaching.
“I really think that the Republican Party is going to die as a result of this election cycle. I really do think that,” Johnson said in response to a question about the future of the Libertarian Party. “And I potentially see the Libertarian Party as supplanting the Republican Party, but we’ll see.”
Johnson added that he thought more Libertarians would run for public office in the coming years as a result of the 2016 election. Asked about his campaign’s desired impact if he loses next month’s election, Johnson answered, “That it is the death of the two-party system. This is a rigged game.”
The Libertarian nominee has not met the polling threshold required by the Commission on Presidential Debates to set foot onstage opposite Clinton and Trump. In recent weeks, he has committed several gaffes — about the Syrian conflict and his inability to identify any foreign leader — that appear to have played a role in his fledgling level of support in polls.
But Johnson sounded optimistic about the future of his party if the GOP does collapse as he argued it would.
“When I was in college, look if you weren’t a Democrat you didn’t have a heart, and later in life if you weren’t a Republican there were those that said you didn’t have a brain,” Johnson said. “Well, you know what, I think we all have hearts and brains and I think that’s the Libertarian Party.”
