Meet the Anti-Police Former Democrat Attracting Votes as Libertarian in Georgia Senate Race

As the Senate election tightens in Georgia between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D.) and Herschel Walker (R.), the race could come down to who loses the most votes to the Libertarian Party candidate—a former Democrat who supports ending cash bail, cutting police budgets, and open borders but is attracting a surprising number of Republican-leaning voters.

Recent polls have shown Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver receiving between 3.4 percent and 5 percent in the race, blocking either Walker or Warnock from winning a majority. Under Georgia law, if no candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote on Election Day, the top two competitors have to face off in a second head-to-head election.

The Moore Information Group’s Erik Iverson, a pollster for Walker’s campaign, said he believes Oliver is pulling enough Republican votes away from Walker to have an impact on the race. Iverson said Oliver has been effective at appealing to “soft Republican” voters, who might associate “libertarians” with conservative-leaning political figures, such as Republican senator Rand Paul (Ky.). But a review of Oliver’s political positions and public comments found that the Libertarian has much more in common with Democrats than with Republicans.

Over the past two years, Oliver has said he supports “ending cash bail,” “closing most overseas bases,” and “open borders.” He has argued that he’s “more progressive on criminal justice” than Vice President Kamala Harris, described defense spending as “corporate welfare with explosions that kill innocent people,” and said he wants “free and easy immigration.” On another Twitter account, which Oliver appeared to use around the time he switched parties from Democratic to Libertarian in 2012, he said he backed “single-payer health care.”

Oliver opposed the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade and said that if he were elected, he “would be drafting a bill to protect the bodily autonomy of women and codify abortion into law.” He also objected to a law, backed by many conservatives in Georgia, that prohibited students from participating on sports teams that are different from their birth gender.

“A reminder that the Georgia GOP passed a trans sports ban in hours and killed the school choice bill,” he wrote on Twitter in April. “School choice is in their platform. But banning trans girls from sports was their educational priority. Shame.”

Oliver, who is gay, has been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights and described himself last month as the “first #LGBTQ statewide candidate in Georgia history!”

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