The best performance by a Texas Libertarian U.S. Senate nominee fails to crack the Top 70 in party history

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More than a month before Texas Republican primary voters will choose between incumbent John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton in the U.S. Senate run-off on May 26th, Libertarians in the state will have picked their nominee for the office at their state convention in Abilene.

Declared candidates for U.S. Senate are retired insurance adjuster and former California Libertarian Party chair Ted Brown and software company founder Mark Sims.

Democratic State Representative James Talarico awaits the winners for both parties in what many prognosticators – and pollsters – suggest could be a competitive election. The closer the general election race, the tighter the lens will focus on the eventual Libertarian nominee and other independents who qualify for the November ballot.

Multiple horserace polls released this year have found Brown (also the Libertarian 2024 U.S. Senate nominee) receiving the support of at least five percent of likely voters.

However, though Libertarians have reliably fielded candidates for the U.S. Senate in Texas, they have done so without much fanfare or influence on the race.

Through 2024, Libertarians have been on the ballot in 15 of the 18 U.S. Senate elections held in Texas – including each of the last 14 since 1988 – since the party first started fielding nominees for the office nationwide in 1976. [There were no Libertarians on the Texas U.S. Senate ballot in 1976, 1978, and 1984].

These 15 candidates have received an average of 1.5 percent of the vote, although that number has increased to 2.1 percent since 2006.

The best showing was turned in by Ratheon regional manager Rebecca Paddock of Garland in 2014 with 2.88 percent. But that ranks as tied for only the 71st best showing by a Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate among the more than 400 nominees to appear on a general election ballot since 1976.

The aforementioned Brown – a resident of Austin – owns the second best mark winning 2.36 percent in 2024.

However, in neither the 2014 or 2024 cycles, and in no Texas U.S. Senate election with a Libertarian on the ballot, has the vote for a Libertarian candidate been greater than (or even close to) the margin of victory in the general election.

In fact, in the state’s most competitive election during the Libertarian Party era – incumbent Ted Cruz’s 2.7-point victory over U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke in 2018 – Libertarian nominee Neal Dikeman, a venture capitalist from Houston, received the lowest vote for the party (0.78 percent) in a general election since 1982.

Here is the vote for the remaining 12 Libertarian U.S. Senate candidates in Texas:

  • 1982 (0.76 percent): Houston investment broker John Ford
  • 1988 (0.83 percent): Houston electronics firm employee Jeff Daiell
  • 1990 (2.33 percent): Austin investor Gary Johnson
  • 1993 special (0.28 percent): Rockwall auditor Rick Draheim (in the all-party open primary)
  • 1994 (0.84 percent): Houston businessman and mathematician Pierre Blondeau
  • 1996 (0.93 percent): San Antonio legal researcher Michael Bird
  • 2000 (1.16 percent): Burnet author and former pharmaceutical research scientist Mary Ruwart
  • 2002 (0.79 percent): Plano information technology director Scott Jameson
  • 2006 (2.26 percent): Plano realtor Scott Jameson
  • 2008 (2.34 percent): Austin real estate investor Yvonne Schick
  • 2012 (2.06 percent): Dallas businessman John Jay Myers
  • 2020 (1.88 percent): Petersburg manager Kerry McKennon

Libertarians have received double-digit support in U.S. Senate elections six times – but only three times in races with both major parties on the ballot: Joe Miller of Alaska in 2016 (29.36 percent), Gary Johnson of New Mexico in 2018 (15.38 percent), and Carla Howell of Massachusetts in 2000 (11.88 percent).

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