Another incumbent Republican U.S. senator won’t run for reelection in 2022.
Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri announced on Monday that this current term he is serving will be his last.
While some may worry about what that means as the Republican Party tries to regain control of the U.S. Senate next year, it probably won’t have much of an effect. And frankly, if the Republican Party has something to worry about when it comes to trying to retake the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections, Libertarian Party spoilers are a bigger threat.
It’s not the 2000s anymore. Missouri is a solidly red state. In the early 2000s, Democrats controlled the Missouri House of Representatives and were competitive in presidential elections in the state, but that’s no longer the case. The GOP took control of the state House of Representatives in the 2002 elections — Republicans now have a supermajority — and while John McCain won the state by less than a point in the 2008 presidential election, former President Donald Trump won it 56.8% to 41.4% in 2020 despite losing the election.
Meanwhile, if it were not for the Libertarian Party, the Republican Party would most likely have control of the Senate right now, giving Republicans a clear advantage to maintain the Senate in 2022. Here’s why: The Libertarian Party has arguably cost Republicans two U.S. Senate seats in the past five years.
The most recent instance of this was one of the seats that flipped from Republican to Democrat in Georgia. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, defeated Republican incumbent David Perdue 50.6% to 49.4 percent. However, that election only occurred because Georgia uses a runoff election format. If no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote in the general election, then the state holds a runoff election between the top two vote-getters. The first time they faced off, Perdue got 49.7% of the vote, and Ossoff got 48%. The other 2.3% went to the Libertarian Party candidate in the race, Shane Hazel. If it were a two-candidate race on Nov. 3, then surely Perdue would have received enough of that vote to win given how small of a percentage of it he would have needed.
Additionally, a similar situation resulted in a loss for New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte in 2016. Ayotte received 47.9% of the vote when she ran against Democrat Maggie Hassan, who won the race with 48% of the vote. The vote differential between the winner and the runner-up in that race was 1,017 votes. Meanwhile, the other two candidates in the race got the remaining 4.1% (30,339 votes). They were Libertarian Party candidate Brian Chabot (1.7%) and independent Aaron Day (2.4%). Day is a former chairman of the Free State Project, which strives to make New Hampshire a libertarian stronghold through migration. If Day and Chabot weren’t in that race, Ayotte probably would’ve won.
In 2022, there will likely be competitive Senate races in states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, and others. If there are two different kinds of right-wing candidates on the ballot and only one Democrat, that’s an advantage for the Democrat.
To avoid this, Republicans have a couple of options. They can try to appeal to some of those Libertarian Party voters or try to build a broader coalition, whether it’s with disaffected Democrats, nonvoters, or independents. If you’re not happy with libertarian spoilers and you see someone out trying to collect signatures for a Libertarian Party Senate candidate, don’t sign the papers to help get them onto the ballot.
While libertarians don’t win major elections, their presence on ballots can help Democrats win.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
