Earlier this week, Marc Victor, the Libertarian Party candidate for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat, dropped out and endorsed Blake Masters, the Republican nominee.
Many libertarians saw this move as a betrayal, including Justin Amash, a Libertarian and former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, who called Victor’s decision “utterly pathetic.” Other libertarian personalities clearly have some affection for Masters, including Dave Smith, a comedian and potential L.P. presidential candidate in 2024, who backed Masters and commended Victor for exiting the race.
L.P. Chair Angela McArdle did not go so far as to endorse Masters, saying that her position precludes her from doing so. “While I appreciate a lot of Blake Masters’ policy positions, obviously as chair of the national Libertarian Party, I am not able to endorse him,” McArdle said in an interview on Rising, the news show I co-host for The Hill. “I wish everyone in Arizona the best of luck voting and to vote your conscience.”
McArdle did distinguish Masters and some of the other Republican candidates.
“I don’t think that Dr. Oz and Blake Masters are close at all in ideology and policy,” she said. “I believe that’s the same case in Georgia. From what I understand, the Georgia GOP is not liberty-minded. I support our candidates who are running there.”
According to McArdle, the L.P. primarily focuses on winning races but also seeks “to push the Overton window in the direction of liberty” by pressuring Republicans and Democrats to adopt more libertarian positions. She said that libertarians should shrug off Republican accusations that they are spoiling races; if Republicans don’t want Libertarian spoilers, they should adopt more libertarian positions.
“The fact that [Dr. Oz] can’t beat Fetterman in a race is not anything that libertarians should be biting their nails or clutching their pearls over,” she said.
Watch the full interview here.
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