The 5 selected polls have spoken and Gary Johnson was not in the first debate. One poll was 6 weeks old, one poll included a statistically insignificant number of voters under 34, and another only included 18% independents to represent the 30-40% of independent voters. So Gary was not included and we are being told it is a 2 way race and not to waste our vote. Is it time to fold? I say HELL NO!
Gary Johnson is leading among voters under the age of 25; He is leading among independent voters and he is either leading or tied with Trump among the military. We hold the balance of power in 36 states by polling greater than the margin between the GOP and the Dems.
When viewers were asked if the debate made them more likely to vote for Clinton or Trump, 47% said neither. It is up to us to let them know that their neither is spelled JOHNSON!
We have been getting endorsements from major papers such as the Chicago Tribune and the Detroit News, yet you would never know that unless you read those papers. The MSM has gone into full attack mode against Gary and even President Obama has warned against voting for Gary by name.
Now is the time to fight back.
In Indiana, Gary Johnson is polling in double digits and many voters in the older parties are voting against candidates, not for them. Hillary will NOT be able to pull enough anti-Trump Republicans to stop Trump because most of them are more anti-Clinton than they are anti-Trump. Polls put her at about 40% in Indiana, there is no way that she could pull 10% of the GOP vote to beat Trump; but Gary Johnson could.
In a 3- way race we are the obvious underdog, but the anti- Clinton vote and the anti-Trump vote added to the pro-Johnson vote would be enough to win. All we need to do is reach the tipping point where people see they can vote FOR a candidate and prevent either of the older parties’ train wrecks.
On the internet we are competitive- the Libertarian Party of Indiana’s Facebook page has a weekly page reach of over half a million. With almost 21,000 likes, it has more likes than the Indiana Democratic or Republican pages. Now it is time to reach out to the other voters.
Media ad buys – be heard!
The Libertarian Party of Indiana will be running radio and TV ads on behalf of Gary Johnson across the state. We will be running national ads produced by the Johnson/Weld team and local ads produced professionally in state. We have already budgeted thousands of dollars for hundreds of ads. How many ads? It depends on you.
We will run a mix of local ads currently in production and national ads with LPIN paid for tags. The local ads are built around the idea of pride in voting Libertarian, pride in voting for Gary Johnson. You can preview the ads here.
Now is not the time for us to sit back; it is time to be heard. If we all pitch in, we will be heard. The 60 second cable ads run from $1 to $674 each. I will personally consult with anyone who contributes $500 or more to this drive as to the placement of their ads.
We have one month to go; now is the time.
Joe Hauptmann
LPIN State Chair