A new Libertarian chair, an empty Green field and the long shots of 2028

By Staff Reporter

This article updates the Inquisitor’s Feb. 23 report on Jim Ostrowski’s campaign for chair of the Libertarian National Committee.

WASHINGTON — In February, the Inquisitor reported on Buffalo attorney Jim Ostrowski’s bid to lead the Libertarian Party with a different party-building strategy. In May he came within a few dozen votes of winning. The man who beat him, Indiana party chair Evan McMahon, now leads the country’s largest third party into a 2028 cycle in which the Greens have no declared candidate and the most-discussed outsider effort comes from disaffected Republicans, not from an established minor party.

Why it matters

Third parties rarely win, but they can shape presidential races, especially close ones. How the Libertarians and Greens handle the next two years will decide whether they offer voters a real alternative in 2028 or are overshadowed by a new anti-war, anti-establishment movement on the right.

How the chair race ended

Delegates at the Libertarian National Convention in Grand Rapids, Mich., held May 21-25, elected McMahon chair with 320 of 598 ballots cast, according to the party’s announcement. The contest took three rounds. Ostrowski led the first round 195 to 187, with former executive director Wes Benedict at 125, according to the convention’s published results. McMahon edged ahead 241 to 236 in the second round and won the third 320 to 265. Rob Yates and Jeremy Kauffman, chair of the New Hampshire affiliate, were eliminated after the first round, and Benedict after the second.

McMahon has said where he wants to take the party. “The proper approach for a Libertarian candidate to take is to be a libertarian and run,” he told Reason after the convention. “Not to seek an armistice with somebody who’s going to grow the state.” That is a break from a faction that, as Reason put it, flirted with using Libertarian voters as leverage with a major party, including inviting Donald Trump to the 2024 convention. “There’s no deals that can be made for a cabinet position when you’re sacrificing our set of principles in our platform,” McMahon said.

The same convention voted to disaffiliate the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, which had endorsed Trump in 2024 instead of the party’s nominee, Chase Oliver. McMahon called the move “necessary.” His stated goal is 66,000 sustaining members, those who give at least $25 a year, by 2028. He points to more than 700,000 registered Libertarian voters nationwide as the pool he hopes to draw from.

Ostrowski’s close finish shows the party is still divided over strategy. McMahon won with about 54 percent in the final round, a mandate but not a dominant one.

The Green field is empty, for now

No major candidate has declared for the 2028 Green Party nomination, and Jill Stein, the party’s 2016 and 2024 nominee, has not announced another run, according to 2028 Tracker. The Greens choose their nominee at a convention in the election year, so the lack of a field is not unusual.

A handful of lesser-known Greens have filed. Federal Election Commission records show Edward Searls of Iowa registered as a Green Party presidential candidate in September 2025. Politics1, which tracks filers and potential candidates, also lists Travis Owens of California and Chuck Swan and Randy Toler of Florida, along with Stein.

The long shots on the right

The most-discussed outsider effort is not a party at all. On Aug. 1, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia posted a photo of herself with Tucker Carlson, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent and others, and announced a new movement. “We said no more foreign wars and we meant it and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise,” she wrote, according to The Independent. “But he’s betrayed us all.… The movement has begun.”

Greene has since sought to cool speculation about a Carlson presidential bid. “Tucker, he’s not running for president,” she said. “He said that publicly. He said that privately.” Carlson himself said earlier this summer that he was “of course” not planning to run.

Massie is a more open question. He lost his May 19 primary to Trump-backed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. Days later he filed paperwork for a 2028 House race, NBC News reported, while writing that “I haven’t made a final decision about which office to seek, if I run.” Asked on “Meet the Press” about a presidential bid, he said: “I will not rule out anything, and right now I’m not going to rule in anything.” Politics1 lists Massie among potential Libertarian candidates, though he has not said he would seek that party’s nomination.

Analysis: a crowded lane

McMahon’s argument is that Libertarians should run as Libertarians. The problem is that some of the voters he hopes to reach, anti-war and anti-establishment conservatives frustrated with Trump, are now being courted by Greene’s group. If a well-known figure from that movement sought the Libertarian nomination, McMahon’s party could face the same debate about outsiders that it had over Trump in 2024. If they run as independents instead, the Libertarians would be competing with them for the same voters.

Third-party candidates are already on November ballots. In North Carolina’s Senate race, Green Michael Dublin and Libertarian Shannon Bray are running alongside Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Michael Whatley, WLOS reported. Their totals on Nov. 3 will give both parties a measure of their strength heading into 2028.

Image: Bob Barr speaks with reporters at the 2008 Libertarian National Convention in Denver, where he won the party’s presidential nomination. Photo: Bob Barr/Flickr, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.