If you’re reading this, it’s likely because you’ve proposed voting for a Libertarian Party candidate or running a Libertarian Party campaign anywhere outside of New Hampshire.
Unfortunately, your odds of getting struck by lightning are much better than the odds your vote determines the outcome of the US presidential election.
"Nate Silver, and Aaron Edlin used the 2008 presidential election (Obama-McCain) to evaluate what probability the average American could have reasonable formed that he could elect the president, i.e., that without his vote another president would be elected. It was at most 1 in 10,000,000 depending on locations, and 1 in 60,000,000 million on average over the United States. (See “What Is the Probability Your Vote Will Make a Difference,” Economic Inquiry 50:2 [April 2012], 321-326.)"
Running for office outside of New Hampshire will also waste your time and money.
After 50 years of effort, the LP does not show signs of working, by any metric.
No Libertarian has received more than ~3% of the Presidential vote.
Nor has a single Libertarian been elected to Congress, a Governorship, or the Mayoral office of any populous city.
The Libertarian Party squanders most of its meagre time and money just getting on the ballot.
”But!” you might say. “The LP candidate might spoil the GOP candidate. We can use that to leverage concessions.”
I don't care if libertarians occasionally spoil GOP candidates, I want libertarians to _be_ the GOP.
”But!” you might say. “A libertarian was elected municipal dogcatcher in an uncontested race in Podunk, Pennsylvania! It’s happening!”
I don't care if libertarians win powerless dogcatcher offices, I want libertarians to dominate the statehouse and the Governor's mansion.
Unfortunately, libertarians have little chance of winning as a third party nationally due to:
low numbers (~15 million libertarians in a country of ~330 million)
low density (libertarians are spread out evenly across the US)
structural barriers to third parties (gerrymandering, ballot access laws, Duverger's law, etc)
Does that mean libertarians should lose hope? Just give up?
No. But if libertarians want to win, we have to follow the laws of political physics.
Think of libertarians like beams of sunlight.
After travelling 93 million miles from the sun, sunlight arrives on earth so diffuse that it can do little more than warm our faces.
But concentate enough sunlight on a single spot? You can melt steel:
Similarly, libertarians are too few, and too diffuse to win large/national elections.
But if we focus our numbers in a single small state, we _will_ have sufficient power to win all of the major offices in that state.
The Free State Project (FSP) is just such a lens for magnifying libertarian power.
Founded by Jason Sorens in 2001, the FSP is a political migration movement intended to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire. By doing so, the FSP aims to make NH a political and cultural stronghold for libertarians.
The Free State Project has achieved greater success at electing libertarians to office than any other strategy libertarians have tried to date.
Even though only ~8 K libertarians have moved so far, the FSP has already racked up the following wins:
More libertarians have won positions in the NH congress than in any other state. As of this writng, the liberty Republicans control the leadership of the NH House GOP, including the Speaker of the House.
Liberty Repuublicans have racked up dozens of legislative victories.
New Hampshire is ranked #1 in Cato’s “Freedom in the 50 States” ranking.
New Hampshire progressives frequently attack NH libertarians. For example, Granite State Matters wrote a 24 page attack on Free Staters. How often do you see authoritarians devoting so much energy to attacking libertarians outside NH?
Porcfest, the largest gathering of libertarians anywhere in the world, happens in New Hampshire.
The culture of liberty is stronger in New Hampshire than any other place on earth
If libertarians want to win, we should double down on the strategies that work, and quit the strategies that don't.
There are ~15 million libertarians in the US. If 2% (300 K) of them moved to New Hampshire, we'd outnumber either major party alone. If 4% (600 K) moved there, we'd outnumber both parties combined.
With enough libertarians concentrated in New Hampshire we could:
dominate the NH House
dominate the NH Senate
elect libertarians to the national Senate / House
replace authoritarians with libertarians in every position of power at state, county, and city level:
governorship
judges
cops
school boards
zoning commissions
district attorneys
regulatory commissioners (liquor commission, state EPA, etc)
Having done so, we would be able to:
completely separate school and state
enact "free banking" laws
eliminate all state-level drug laws
eliminate all state-level sex work laws
remove zoning restrictions
eliminate licensure laws
auction off the roads
With enough numbers, the state of NH could even push back against Federal power. A libertarian dominated NH government could:
establish rational nuclear power laws
nullify federal welfare programs (SS, Medicare/Medicaid
establish rational immigration policies
nullify the the whole alphabet soup of Federal regulations enforced by the FDA, EPA, USDA, DEA, SEC, CFTC, BATF, DHS, etc. -
secede, if necessary
Once we've enacted libertarian policies in NH, we can provide concrete evidence that libertarian law/culture results in a happy, wealthy, thriving citizenry. This will help assuage the fears of normies, and allow for greater acceptance of libertarian values more broadly.
Maybe at that point it would make sense to revisit a national campaign. But it makes no sense to tr nationally before then. If libertarians can’t win over New Hampshire, we’re certainly not going to be able to win over the country.
Run for President—you will lose.
Run for office in a large state—you will lose.
Run for office in New Hampshire—you can win.
Focus your efforts.
Move to New Hampshire.
Melt the chains of the state.
