Win or Lose, Gary Johnson is making Libertarian History

The former New Mexico governor will almost certainly win the highest vote percentage of any Libertarian Party candidate in history. The title is now held by 1980 nominee Edward Clark, who earned 1.06 percent of the vote (his campaign was buoyed by the checkbook of his running mate, David Koch).

There is some question as to what his polling numbers really look like right now. There have been reports that "millenials" those aged 18-35 are being excluded from the usual reporting numbers, as well as military personnel. As most of you may know, those are the groups Gary Johnson and Bill Weld perform best in. Whether this is some kind of conspiracy to make Gary look bad, or just "the way things have always been" I leave up to you to decide.

The fact of the matter is Gary was polled at 39% amongst active duty, beating out both Hillary and Trump. Among Marines, Gary was at a whopping 45%. However, despite Clinton's underwhelming performance among active duty troops in the poll, their family members preferred Clinton at 29 percent to 27 percent for Trump. Johnson came in third, at 24 percent.

I found varying results when looking for polls specifically targeting millenials, but across the board the numbers showed that Trump was losing ground in that age group, and Johnson was atleast beating the Republican nominee, and sometimes Hillary as well.

If Johnson can snag 5 percent of the national popular vote, the Federal Election Commission will HAVE to classify the Libertarians as an official “minor party,” granting the 2020 nominee a lump sum of cash for the fall campaign, courtesy of the American taxpayer. While we're anti-taxation, we're going to need to recoop some cash after these campaign costs. National recognition is a huge deal for our party, which has been struggling for years to gain media attention, and to be acknowledged as more than just tin-foil hat wearing conspiracists.

Meeting the threshold would at least guarantee the part a 10 million dollar pay back, more if we gain more of the popular vote. That may seem like very little compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars major party presidential nominees routinely raise, and spend. However, our boy Johnson has gotten this far after raising only $8 million through August. Knowing the Libertarian Party’s nominee is guaranteed $10 million will allow him or her to hit the campaign trail running, improving the odds of getting into the debates, winning an even larger share of vote and fortifying the party’s place in the American political landscape.

With Trump's campaign in a tail-spin it may look like Hillary has this election in the bag. But, win or lose, for the Libertarian Party, all we really need is 5% of the popular vote for this to be a major win in our history. Maybe this isn't going to be our year, although I truly still hope the electoral college works in our favor. But if it's not our year, it will at the very least be the beginning of a true revolution.

Keep fighting ladies and gentleman. Let's get liberty and justice for all.