Gary Johnson significant event Gary Johnson presidential campaign, 2012
On December 28, 2011, Johnson formally withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, and declared his candidacy for the 2012 presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On May 5, 2012, at the 2012 Libertarian National Convention, Johnson received the Libertarian Party's official nomination for president in the 2012 election, by a vote of 419 votes to 152 votes for second-place candidate R. Lee Wrights. In his acceptance speech, Johnson asked the convention's delegates to nominate as his running mate Judge Jim Gray of California. Gray subsequently received the party's vice-presidential nomination on the first ballot.Johnson spent the early months of his campaign making media appearances on television programs such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld. Starting in September 2012, Johnson embarked on a three-week tour of college campuses throughout the US. On October 23, 2012, Gary Johnson participated in a third-party debate that was aired on C-SPAN, RT America, and Al Jazeera English. A post-debate online election allowed people to choose two candidates from the debate they thought had won to face each other head-to-head in a run-off debate. Gary Johnson and Jill Stein won the poll.Johnson stated that his goal was to win at least 5 percent of the vote, as winning 5 percent would allow Libertarian Party candidates equal ballot access and federal funding during the next election cycle. In a national Gallup poll of likely registered voters conducted June 7 through June 10, 2012, Johnson took 3% of the vote, while a Gallup poll conducted September 6 through September 9, 2012, showed Johnson taking 1% of likely voters.The final results showed Johnson received 1% of the popular vote, a total of 1,275,971 votes. This was the best result in the Libertarian Party's history by raw vote number, though under the 1.1 percentage of the vote won by Ed Clark in 1980. Despite falling short of his stated goal of 5%, Johnson stated, "Ours is a mission accomplished." In regards to a future presidential bid, he said "it is too soon to be talking about 2016".
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