Who is Chase Oliver? Meet the Libertarian candidate running for president

CEDAR RAPIDS — Last year, Libertarian Chase Oliver was widely credited with forcing Georgia’s U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker into a runoff.

Oliver secured more than 2 percent of the vote in the Georgia Senate race, running a grassroots campaign in which he spent just more than $14,000.

Now, the 37-year-old Atlanta resident is vying for the Libertarian presidential nomination.

The Libertarian activist, who began his political activism opposing the war in Iraq under former President George W. Bush, sees a political landscape ripe for a third-party candidate to make waves — one in which many voters don’t want to see a rematch between Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic incumbent President Joe Biden.

Oliver is running on a platform emphasizing immigration and criminal justice reforms as a “pro-gun, pro-police reform, pro-choice Libertarian” who is “armed and gay.”

“The duopoly is going to gift us with a Trump versus Biden 2.0 election, and that’s going to allow millions of voters to feel dissatisfied and to look for something alternative,” Oliver told a group of eight people gathered Sunday at RAYGUN in Cedar Rapids for a meet-and-greet event with Linn County Libertarians.

“A 39-year-old Libertarian (the age Oliver will be come election day) who is ready to speak our principles boldly and loudly to the American public will look so great compared to two 80-year-old decrepit, old-party machine people, who are going to be spouting the same lines and the same mudslinging that they do every four years,” Oliver said. “We need to be able to be bold and different. I want to be an aspirational candidate who looks to inspire new voters — who looks to grow our tent” and the Libertarian brand.

Iowa Libertarians earned enough support last fall to qualify as a major political party alongside Democrats and Republicans.

Libertarian candidate for governor Rick Stewart and his running mate, Marco Battaglia, earned 2.4 percent of the vote in the 2022 governor’s race, exceeding the 2 percent minimum required by state law to qualify as an official political party.

Stewart, of Cedar Rapids, won nearly 29,000 votes in his gubernatorial run, becoming the first third-party ticket in Iowa history to achieve the milestone in a gubernatorial race.

The Libertarian Party can now begin holding state-run primary elections and appear as an option on voter registration forms.

To remain a political party, the party's candidates for president and governor must keep receiving at least 2 percent of the total votes cast in each general election.

Oliver, who previously visited Des Moines in April for the 2023 Libertarian Party of Iowa State Convention and held an event in Altoona Saturday, said one of the reasons he’s focusing on Iowa as a top state for his campaign is to help grow the Libertarian Party of Iowa and maintain its major party status.

Iowa Libertarian David Green, of Des Moines, happened in be in Cedar Rapids and stopped Sunday to see Oliver. Green first met him at the party’s state convention this spring.

“We have a great opportunity, because of the dissatisfaction with both Republicans and Democrats, I think, from the general public, which we had in 2020, but I don’t think the Libertarian candidate (Jo Jorgensen) really campaigned like she should have to take advantage of that situation,” Green said.

Oliver said he intends to campaign full-time; however, his campaign raised less than $25,000 in the last quarter, compared to millions raised by better-known Republican presidential hopefuls that have barnstormed the state in recent months.

Regardless, Green said he feels Oliver has “shown that he can be a player, like he did in Georgia.”

“Obviously, we’re probably not going to get 90 percent of the vote, but having somebody who can make a significant impact and grow the party — and get the message out there — is very important to me,” Green said.

Asked how serious Iowa voters are in considering a third-party candidate, Green said he’s optimistic.

“I think Iowans in general are very open to at least listening to ideas, and I think he does such a good job articulating those ideas that I think he’s going to bring a lot of people on board,” Green said.

Oliver said he wants to tamp down inflation by returning to pre‐​pandemic spending levels, and would veto any budget Congress sends that is not balanced.

“And if a government shutdown occurs because of that, well that’s less money we’re spending,” he said. “And that’s a bluff that I’ve got to be willing to call as a Libertarian.”

Asked about the impact that would have on American households and the interruption in pay and benefits for millions of Americans, Oliver argued the country has been put into a “no-win situation, because we’ve been spent into a $32 trillion debt.”

“It’s like alcoholism,” he said. “If you take the bottle out of the alcoholic’s hand, they’re going to … detox. … But, over time, the body will heal itself. We have to balance our budget now and get spending under control. Because, if we don’t, it only gets worse … and eventually will have a bad outcome for our economy.”

He also wants to see an end to qualified immunity for law enforcement at the federal level.

“I want to fight to make it where we are on a level playing field with government in a court of law,” Oliver said. “So that way, when we’ve done wrong, we can seek the appropriate civil justice that every other profession would have to do.”

He is also a proponent of comprehensive immigration reform.

“We have millions and millions of people who live in this country in a shadow economy, because they live here without documentation,” Oliver said. “Because getting here was too difficult to do the legal or the right way. … Let’s Ellis Island our immigration policy so anybody who wants to come here and make an honest day’s pay and put down roots and start their American dream can do the same thing my ancestors did.

“This also has the added benefit of keeping the law enforcement eye on the real criminals at the border.”

As for Ukraine, Oliver said he believes U.S. support is exacerbating the conflict and does not support putting additional resources into that country’s fight with Russia. Instead, he said NATO and European countries — whom he believes have the financial ability to support Ukraine — need to take the lead, as they’re the one’s directly threatened by Russian invasion.

“I would push our military footprint back,” he said. “I think us contributing to a proxy war in the region is not great.”

However, Oliver said the United States should be focused on “working to get every single refugee” out of Ukraine, along with Russian dissidents, and granting them asylum in the U.S.

On China, Oliver said he feels there’s been much saber rattling, but that both countries are so economically dependent on one another that he sees Chinese aggression as “somewhat of a hollow threat” that some officials use to increase funding for the U.S. military industrial complex.

Oliver said he will be back in Iowa next month to participate in The Des Moines Register’s Political Soapbox and greet voters at the Iowa State Fair.

Stewart, the Libertarian candidate for Iowa governor in 2022, is hopeful Oliver’s campaign and major party status will draw more media attention to the party and its candidates.

“It gives us more publicity and it also allows us to nominate more candidates across the state,” Stewart said. “So it’s a real boost for our ability to step forward and give Iowans” a third choice.

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