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Gary Johnson 2012 presidential campaign

The 2012 presidential campaign of Gary Johnson, the 29th governor of New Mexico, was announced on April 21, 2011. He declared his candidacy for the 2012 Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. On December 28, 2011, Johnson withdrew his candidacy for the Republican nomination, and declared his candidacy for the 2012 presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party. The 2012 Libertarian National Convention was held during the first weekend of May 2012. On May 5, 2012, after promoting his libertarian-oriented political positions to delegates, Johnson received the most votes at the convention and became the official 2012 Libertarian presidential nominee. On November 6, 2012, Johnson received just under 1% of the popular vote in the general election, amounting to more than 1.2 million votes, more than double what the Barr/Root ticket received in 2008. This was the most successful result for a third-party presidential candidacy since 2000, and the best in the Libertarian Party's history by vote number at the time.[4][5] Johnson ran again in 2016 and received nearly four times his 2012 vote total.

Gary Johnson 2012

Gary Johnson
Former Governor of New Mexico
(1995–2003)

Jim Gray
Former judge

Jim Gray (Running mate)
Ron Nielson (Senior Advisor)[1][2]

US$2,553,878 [3] (Nov. 26, 2012)

The People's President
Live Free

Campaign developments[edit]

Announcement[edit]

On April 21, 2011 Johnson officially announced via Twitter that he was running for president.[19] He followed this announcement with a speech at the New Hampshire State House in Concord, New Hampshire.[20]


Johnson focused the majority of his Republican campaign activities on the New Hampshire primary.[21]

Campaign staff[edit]

Johnson chose Ron Nielson of NSON Opinion Strategy, the director of both of his two New Mexico gubernatorial campaigns, as his presidential campaign manager and senior advisor.[21] His campaign was run from Salt Lake City, Utah, where Nielson's offices are located.[21] Johnson's economics advisor was Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron.[2]

Political positions of Gary Johnson

official campaign website

Gary Johnson 2012

at the Federal Election Commission

Financial information (federal office)

(Archive)

2001 Text of State of the State speech

(Archive)

2002 Text of State of the State speech

Scan of the original antitrust filings