Libertarians
Trump won the state with 2.8 million votes (about 52%) to Hillary Clinton’s nearly 2.4 million (about 44%). No other candidates came close to Johnson’s total.
There are two third-party presidential candidates on Ohio’s general election ballot this year: Howie Hawkins, representing the Green Party, and Jorgensen, a lifelong Libertarian who ran in 1992 for a South Carolina congressional seat and in ’96 as the party’s vice presidential nominee.
During the latter race, Jorgensen said people weren’t as tuned in to the party’s message against government overreach and out-of-control spending. The coronavirus pandemic this year and its aftermath, however, have brought those issues to the surface.
“Now, it’s just a matter of ‘hey, we’re over here,’” she said. “We’re the ones who think that you should have your own choice.”
Jorgensen spoke for about an hour Saturday evening, offering Libertarian positions on reducing government regulations, taxes, spending and bureaucracy and answering audience questions.
“I’m the only one running who believes that you know better how to make decisions for your family,” she said. “You know better how to spend money than any bureaucrat and politician in Washington.”
Among other issues, Jorgensen said she would bring U.S. troops currently serving outside the country home and establish a neutral U.S. position when it comes to foreign conflict.
“Donald Trump promised that, but he hasn’t done that,” she said. “And unfortunately, Joe Biden is a war hawk, just like Hillary Clinton … We are, unfortunately, the only anti-war party out there.”
Jorgensen said she would cut health care costs by reducing government and insurance company involvement and increasing price competition.
“If I could get one message to every American voter, it’s that we do not have a free market health care system, and we haven’t in almost 100 years,” she said. “If we did have a free market, then we wouldn’t have the problems that we have right now.”
On policing issues, Jorgensen said law enforcement should be controlled locally, free of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal dictates. “Why should we have, once again, a one-size-fits-all from Washington that may or may not fit your community?” she said. “We need to leave it up to the local people as to what’s best for them. What we have been doing by interfering, which is to hand out tanks, grenade launchers, tear gas, has just been making the problems get worse …”