The 2020 presidential campaign of Vermin Supreme began on June 26, 2019, and ended during the

2020 Libertarian National Convention The 2020 Libertarian National Convention delegates selected the Libertarian Party nominees for president and vice president in the 2020 United States presidential election. Primaries were held, but were preferential in nature and did not dete ...

; Supreme failed to win the nomination.

Background

Vermin Supreme is a

perennial candidate A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates are most common where there is no limit on the number of times that a person can run for office and little cost ...

who has run in several United States presidential primaries. Supreme has run in the

2004 Democratic Party presidential primaries From January 14 to June 8, 2004, voters of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States, president in the 2004 United States presidential election. United States Senate, Senator J ...

, the

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

Republican presidential primaries, and the

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

and

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

Democratic Party presidential primaries. After having announced plans in 2018 of running for the 2020 Libertarian Party presidential nomination, Supreme filed his candidacy with the FEC on June 26, 2019. According to FEC filings, he chose Desarae Lindsey as his campaign manager. He also chose Richard Manzo, budget committeeman in

Goffstown, New Hampshire Goffstown is a New England town, town in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 18,577 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The compact center of town, where 3,366 people resided at the 2020 census, is def ...

as his chief strategist. Supreme has described his campaign staff as including "about a dozen people around the country with the various state coordinators," and his effort as "ultimately isfirst real campaign".

Campaign

Vermin Supreme appeared on

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

' ''Watter's World'' on May 18, 2019 to discuss his campaign for the Libertarian nomination. In December 2019, Supreme selected Spike Cohen as his running mate. On January 11, 2020, Supreme won a non-binding presidential preference poll conducted internally by the

Libertarian Party of New Hampshire The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire (LPNH) is the New Hampshire affiliate of the national Libertarian Party (LP). Active since its foundation in 1972, it is the third-largest political party in the state having had multiple members elected t ...

, winning 26 out of 44 votes cast. The primary was tabulated using

Bucklin voting Bucklin voting is a class of voting methods that can be used for single-member and multi-member districts. As in highest median rules like the majority judgment, the Bucklin winner will be one of the candidates with the highest median ranking ...

. On March 3, 2020, Supreme was declared the winner of the Massachusetts primary. On May 23, Supreme placed third on the national Libertarian Party's final round of balloting. Supreme's former running mate, Spike Cohen, went on to win the Libertarian Party's vice presidential nomination.

Satirical candidacy

Many have cited Vermin Supreme's presidential campaign as harmful to the credibility or image of the Libertarian Party. As Supreme told ''

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

'' magazine, "It’s been a very interesting sell trying to convince the Libertarian Party that a serious party can take a joke candidate and get their 5% without being pegged as a joke party." Spike Cohen, Supreme's running mate, remarked that their campaign is "perfectly serious". Explaining the campaign's message, Cohen said, "it's the system that's a joke and it treats us as a joke and it treats the idea of having more than two options as a joke. We're changing the punch line by trolling the system." Supreme has said that, in contrast to his past runs for the presidency, he considers this campaign a "serious" bid.

References

{{United States presidential election, 2020 Supreme