page_title: Gary Johnson 2012 presidential campaign
section_title: Republican debates
hierarchical_section_title: Gary Johnson 2012 presidential campaign / Campaign developments / Republican debates
caption_attribution_description: English: Gary Johnson visits Zuccotti Park during the OWS protests. Deutsch: Gary Johnson besucht Zuccotti Park während der Occupy-Bewegung.
context_page_description: The 2012 presidential campaign of Gary Johnson, the 29th Governor of New Mexico, was announced on April 21, 2011. He declared his candidacy for the 2012 Republican Party nomination for President of the United States. On December 28, 2011, Johnson withdrew his candidacy for the Republican nomination, and declared his candidacy for the 2012 presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party. The 2012 Libertarian National Convention was held during the first weekend of May 2012. On May 5, 2012, after promoting his libertarian-oriented political positions to delegates, Johnson received the most votes at the convention and became the official 2012 Libertarian presidential nominee. On November 6, 2012, Johnson received just under 1% of the popular vote in the general election, amounting to more than 1.2 million votes, more than double what the Barr/Root ticket received in 2008. This was the most successful result for a third-party presidential candidacy since 2000, and the best in the Libertarian Party's history by vote number at the time. Johnson ran again in 2016 and received nearly four times his 2012 vote total.
context_section_description: Johnson participated in the first of the Republican presidential debates, hosted by Fox News in South Carolina on May 5, 2011, appearing on stage with Herman Cain, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, and Rick Santorum. Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann both declined to debate.
  Johnson was excluded from the next three debates on June 13 (hosted by CNN in New Hampshire), August 11 (hosted by Fox News in Iowa), and September 7 (hosted by CNN in California). After the first exclusion, Johnson made a 43-minute video responding to each of the debate questions, which he posted on YouTube. The first exclusion, which was widely publicized, gave Johnson "a little bump" in name recognition and an increase in small donations for a few days. Not being in the debate caused serious long-term problems for the campaign as it became difficult to raise money from donors, Johnson's name being pulled from polls and few opportunities from the media to respond to events. For the financial quarter ending June 30, Johnson raised a mere $180,000. Johnson still managed to poll higher two weeks prior to the September 7th debate than Rick Santorum or Jon Huntsman, who were invited to that debate while Johnson was not.
  Then, on September 21, Fox News decided that because Johnson polled at least 2% in five recent polls, he could participate in a September 23 debate in Florida, which it co-hosted with the Florida Republican Party (the party objected to Johnson's inclusion). Johnson participated, appearing on stage with Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum. During the debate, Johnson delivered what many media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, and Time, called the best line of the night: "My next-door neighbor's two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this current administration." Entertainment Weekly opined that Johnson had won the debate.
caption: Governor Johnson visits Occupy-Protesters in Zuccotti Park, October 18, 2011
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