ATLANTA — Chase Oliver, an Atlanta Libertarian Party candidate running for president, took a major first step toward securing the party's nomination Monday night as he appeared headed for a strong victory in the Iowa Caucus.
In unofficial results posted on X by the Libertarian Party of Iowa, Oliver had a plurality lead of 40.70% of the vote, well ahead of second-place Michael Rectenwald at 17.44%. The results were not yet official, and were still without three counties reporting at the time the Iowa Libertarian Party posted results just before midnight.
Oliver was Georgia's Libertarian candidate for U.S. Senate in 2022, gaining a little more than 2% of the vote in the race that also featured Herschel Walker and Sen. Raphael Warnock.
The 38-year-old posted a message to X after the unofficial results were released.
"If you haven't seen by now, it's been announced unofficially that I have won the Libertarian Party of Iowa's presidential caucus. I am so excited for this victory, it is just a confirmation to me that hard work does indeed pay off," Oliver said. "We've invested time in Iowa, getting to know folks out here, traveling through the state and that allowed us to participate in the State Fair and Political Soap Box -- being the first candidate for president who's not a Republican or Democrat to ever to be able to do that. And it paid off with a wide margin of victory tonight."
Oliver also pointed to a victory in the Arizona Libertarian Party's convention straw poll this weekend.
"This (Iowa) combined with win this weekend at the Arizona state convention with their delegate straw poll, where we also won by a wide margin, tells me we have momentum in this campaign, that we are ready to keep on running at full speed all the way through the nomination process and beyond into the general election," he said. "To give voters a chance to vote for someone they feel good about."
New Hampshire has a party convention later this week, as does Florida, and the Libertarian Party of Georgia is scheduled to hold its convention Jan. 26-28.