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And the psychology lecturer - who has now received more than 1.7 million votes nationwide - has admitted her surprise that the US President has not yet lashed out at her on Twitter. More than a week after the US went to the polls, Mr Trump is refusing to concede defeat, despite trailing trailing Democrat Joe Biden by more than five million in the popular vote. Mr Trump has made multiple allegations of voter fraud, without citing any evidence to back up his claims - but with the vast majority of votes counted, an examination of tallies in the Keystone State, along with Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia, shows in all three cases, Ms Jorgensen's total exceeds Mr Biden's current lead.

I am kind of surprised he has not done that so far but I can tell you I have gotten some angry and emails and an angry voicemail from Trump supporters

Jo Jorgensen

Victory in all four would have given Mr Trump 57 extra electoral college votes - putting him back in the White House.

Ms Jorgensen told Express.co.uk: "With Pennsylvania I did see the margins, but most of the votes would have had to go to Trump and that's probably not likely although it's possible."

With reference to the New York billionaire's tendency to take potshots at opponents on social media, she added: "I am kind of surprised he has not done that so far but I can tell you I have gotten some angry and emails and an angry voicemail from Trump supporters.

"And I was also getting angry emails from Biden supporters before the election saying was giving the election from Trump.

"'Thanks to me the country is ruined,' etc. I got called horrible names, the only reason I was running was because I had a big ego, that sort of thing.

"Whereas if anybody watched me during the campaign, they would say the opposite.

"When I was interviewed and asked when I became interested in politics, my answer was I am still not interested in politics.

"I think the average person knows how to spend the money better than any bureaucrat or special interest in Washington.

"If I had an ego, I would be working as a Democrat or a Republican getting all this special interest money to get my name out there."

Ms Jorgensen stressed there was no guarantee people who voted for her would have otherwise opted for either Mr Trump or Mr Biden.

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She explained: "After the first Presidential debate my website received so much traffic that it ground to a halt.

"People were looking around saying 'Oh my gosh, is there any alternative out there?'"

With regard to Mr Trump's decision to launch multiple legal cases in an apparent attempt to prove his case, Ms Jorgensen said there did not seem to be very much evidence to be back it up.

She added: "I don't mind Trump going through every legal process he has.

"To me it looks like Biden is actually going to be the winner. However, I don't begrudge Trump for taking the legal option.

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"He probably won't get much joy out of that; however if there are people who have proof of irregularities then they should be checked out.

"I don't think it is going to go anywhere but there it is.

"I think it is just typical human nature and he is being told all these stories about irregularities happening."

There have been concerns voiced in the US over Mr Trump's refusal to admit defeat, with some suggesting he is trying to subvert the will of the people.

However, Mr Jorgensen dismissed concerns about any threat to American democracy.

She said: "I don't think there is going to be any problem in changing governments.

"I have heard anecdotal evidence but anecdotal evidence usually does not stand up.

"I think it is just typical human nature and he is being told all these stories about irregularities happening."

Mr Trump's reaction was largely unsurprising, Ms Jorgensen said.

She added: "I am not as against Trump as many people because as a Libertarian I know what it is like to not have the media give me a fair shake.

"I did see the media many times twist what he says so I do have some sympathy for that.

"However, it is hard for me to have a lot of sympathy since he was okay with not including me in the debates.

"He complained about not getting fair media coverage - well at least he GOT media coverage.

"What is frustrating is that a lot of people say well why don't you change the system so it is not two parties.

"But the thing is the system is not set up to be a two-party system - the system is set up so we can be in there."

The decision not to allow her to participate in the Presidential debates was nothing to do with Government, but rather to do with the Democrats and the Republicans acting as an "old boy's club", she said.

She added: "Had I been on the debate stage I could have put my ideas forth but of course they did not want me to do that."

Moreover, Ms Jorgensen emphasised Mr Trump's ideas did not align especially closely to her own.

She said: "Donald Trump is not a friend of Liberty. He has increased the deficit at a faster rate than Obama and that was even before the pandemic.

"As long as government is spending money, that is just taking freedom away from each individual about making their own decisions about how to spend their own money - what kind of school they want to send their kids to, or what kind of retirement they want to have.

"The more money the Government has, the more they are making decisions for us.

"He also said he would start bringing the troops home and he has not done that.

"These aren't peacekeeping missions - they just make us look like a bully."

As for President-Elect Biden, she added: "Over the next four years I can see us continuing to go downhill."

The budget deficit would continue to increase and taxes would continue to rise, she predicted, while there was a reasonable chance of the US becoming involved in more overseas conflicts.

She added: "Now the Democrats are every bit as war-hawkish as the Republicans."

The Libertarian Party is firmly opposed to mandatory wearing of masks to slow the spread of COVID-19, despite the fact that the number of cases in the US rose by 142,846 yesterday.

She said: "Masks may or may not become more popular but this is supposed to be a free country and we should be able to make our own decisions.

"People have this underlying hidden assumption that they don't say, that basically if the government does not do it it does not get done - for example if the government does not require masks then nobody will wear masks.

"We say that's not true - Walmart doesn't care what the laws are, they don't care what state you are in, if you want to go into a Walmart, regardless of whether the Walmart is, you have to wear a mask and then many other stores followed suit.

"So that just shows you that people and businesses jointly decide that is what they want to do.

"Does that mean that everybody will want to wear masks? No, but what we have now is these videos where people are getting into all-out fist-fights about it. Instead of fighting how about we all live peacefully and those who don't want to wear masks, let them shop in other shops that don't require it?"

Stressing it was her personal choice not to wear a mask, she explained: "I do wear masks when I am asked - I did a lot of airline travel and I will wear a mask on a plane, and if I go to a store which requires it I will wear one.

"But there are places I go which do not require one and that is where I prefer. That's up to me and I accept the consequences."

Asked how her approach impacted anyone in a workplace which did not require mask-wearing who feared contracting the illness and passing it on to an elderly or vulnerable relative, she said: "They can quit their job and go to another job. That's what the free market is all about.

"I'd suggest if you work in a place that doesn't require masks of people, then quit that job and go to another place that does."

The Libertarian Party is also a strong advocate of the 2nd amendment, in other words the right to bear arms.

During the week, commentators including Piers Morgan cited pictures of pro-Trump activists in Arizona's Maricopa County who were carrying semi-automatic rifles outside a vote-counting centre.

However, Ms Jorgensen was unconcerned, saying: "I had not heard of that particular incident but the sight of a gun can be intimidating which is why you hardly ever hear of mass-shootings outside of gun-free zones.

"Typically people who go on rampages do so in a gun-free zone because there is nobody there who has a gun that is intimidating so they are not worried about being stopped."

Referring to a fatal shooting in a Texas church last year, she said:

"Luckily there was an armed security guard there and he did not realise he was armed and he shot the guy after he was only able to kill two people.

"So instead of killing 40 or 50 people, there were only two people killed.

"So having the gun there stops some madman from killing people."

Asked whether the ultimate solution was for every adult American to carry a gun, she said: "It's up to the individual but I don't like laws saying you can't have a gun because then only the people who don't care about laws will have a gun."

A total of 37,269 people have died as a result of gun violence in the USA up to and including November 12, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

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US election horror: Meet the woman who may be unwittingly responsible for Trump's defeat - Daily Express

Johnsons relatively strong showing in 2016 bespoke significant right-leaning dissatisfaction with Trump. The defeated ranks of the Never Trump crowd might easily have defected to the Libertarian Party in 2017, carrying a significant portfolio of media and donor assets out of the Republican tent along with them. Indeed, most of that cohort fit a socially liberal, fiscally conservative profile that would have required little ideological accommodation on either side. Instead, this faction gravitated toward novel enterprises like the Lincoln Project and formed a de facto armistice with Democrats in an effort to deny Trump reelection.

Rather than consolidating a newly aggrieved legion of supporters, movement libertarianism has spent the last few years in a state of reflective evolution. Prominent commentators like economist Tyler Cowen have observed the birth of a state capacity libertarianism, embodied in new groups like the Niskanen Center, that is more agnostic about the scope of government than traditional organizations like the Cato Institute. Meanwhile, activists and commentators have cast about for new identifying labels, some discarding libertarian for the more nebulous concept of classical liberalism.

Above all else, the chief obstacle to a growing Libertarian Partyone that actually wins office from time to time, or at least regularly claims a vote share in the high single digitsis simply the architecture of the American electoral system, which tends to sideline minor parties. Independent and third-party bids have, at times, broken through, as with Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, George Wallace in 1968, and Ross Perot in 1992. But those men were nationally known figures, each offering a true ideological alternative to what the Democrats and Republicans were serving up.

There might have been such a man for the moment this year: Justin Amash. The Michigan Republican, who won national headlines for breaking with his party and voting to impeach Donald Trump, explored the possibility of running for the Libertarian Party nomination about six weeks into the coronavirus lockdown, a notion that seemed to cause much more anxiety among establishment Democrats than the Trump camp. Amash, however, withdrew his short-lived campaign for the Libertarian Party nomination later in the spring. It seems quite likely in retrospect that he might have been blazing a brighter electoral path than Jorgensen is at the moment, but well never know. Its difficult, and perhaps impossible, to bring capable, ambitious leaders to moribund parties.

Link:
The Libertarian Moment That Never Comes - The New Republic

Given the party's track record, any Libertarian running for a state-level office would have to be full of almost nutty hubris to expect to win. But next year Marshall Burt will become the only sitting Libertarian state legislator, in Wyoming, and one of only five persons to ever win such a seat solely as a Libertarian. And he says he entered his race certain that he not only could but would win it.

"Being a Marine, I don't have a notion of failure, right? I didn't have the notion of failing or I wouldn't have started," Burt said in a phone interview yesterday. There were other ways he could have spent $10,000 and months of his time than on a failing political campaign, and he thinks anything less than running to win is just useless "lip service" to the cause.

Burt believed in the plausibility of the party's "Frontier Project" model. Libertarian political operative Apollo Pazell saw that chances for actual victory likely involved races where a very small number of total votes was required to win, and where only one major party opponent was on the ballot. Pazell pushed hard this year in a handful of Wyoming races with those qualities, and Burt pushed over the topwith a 276-vote edge over incumbent Democrat Stan Blake, and a total of 1,696 votes.

It's a model that may not be not widely transferable elsewhere. Given Wyoming's Trumpian tilt (the president got 70 percent of the vote there), it is no coincidence that the only Wyoming race the Libertarian Party actually won is Burt's, since he was the only one up against a Democrat and not a Republican. The GOP overwhelmingly won seats both contested and uncontested for Wyoming's state House. Despite having very high expectations for returning candidate Bethany Baldes in District 55, who lost a race in 2018 by only 53 ballots, she lost again this year, against a Republican, by 32 votes.

Burt spent nine years in the Marine Corps and currently works as a track inspector for Union Pacific railroads. Pazell recruited Burt off a party membership roll, then found his civic activism over such issues as an effort to save a local American Legion Hall in Burt's hometown of Green River made him a good pick.

A thorough ground gameincluding up to eight door knocks per voter, including some uncoordinated outside help from Young Americans for Liberty canvasserswon Burt his slim victory.

Burt's ideological backstory is not unusual for a Libertarian. He found himself "fed up with the government" for its "overreach" into Americans' lives and fortunes, a set of intrusions he says is becoming "astronomically out of hand." Being the kind of guy who "votes andcomplains," he decided to do something about it by running for office. He saw neither major party respecting citizens' rights sufficiently, so he went Libertarian.

Burt did, however, have to go through a couple of rounds of convincing from Pazell before Burt stopped "blowing him off" and agreed to runafter getting his wife to sign off on the idea. Burt went through meetings with other area and national Libertarian politicos to see how it could all work out before finally committing.

Burt's local activism, on behalf of local Marines and vets and with the fire department, likely gave him a head start with local voters, since many already had some reason to know and trust him. Burt ran a largely Republican-friendly campaign that emphasized the Second Amendment, new ideas in education, and making the state more attractive to diversified industries without relying on taxes and regulations. He was especially against any attempts to pass "red flag" laws that might allow unelected officials to "come in and confiscate guns, and put the burden on the [citizen] to prove they meet legal requirements to get their guns back."

In canvassing, Burt says he never encountered voters for whom the "Libertarian" label was a dealbreaker, and was often able to explain the party's beliefs about freedom and less government in ways that appealed to Republican voters. The "elevator pitch" version of the message, he says, was "basically, limited government, balanced budget, do what you want in your life without being infringed upon by anyone else"; he could then "expand from that thought process" to specific issues voters might be worried about.

Burt is sure the heavy ground game was important to his victory, though he jokes that some voters may have started to feel inclined not to vote for him because they heard from him so often that it became a near nuisance. He made his home number available to voters, and he fielded many personal calls. Burt was surprised how many voters had never met his incumbent opponent or even knew who he was.

As one man without any party comrades in a 60-person legislature, Burt knows he's unlikely to become an immediate law-passing powerhouse. But he says he'd like to try to work for a balanced budget while lessening the tax and regulatory burdens on Wyoming's "families and children." He says he's already had a "cordial" discussion with the GOP majority leader but he's not yet sure how caucusing will work as the body's sole Libertarian.

Burt has told the Casper Star-Tribune that "I think it's irresponsible to come out and say, 'This is what I'm going to do in my first hundred days' because, in reality, the Libertarian Party does not have a majority, so we do have to see how things fall in place and work with what we have available."

Pazell says he's learned over the years that it's good to start with freshly recruited and trained candidates, not ones who might be stuck in old patterns. He also thinks the Libertarian Party needs more trained campaign managers to take the pressure off of him. He believes that various manpower and money problems caused by COVID-19 cost the party some likely wins, and so he hopes his strategy will bear more fruit in a pandemic-free future election. The state operation was not extraordinarily expensive, with various forcesfrom the national and state party to individual candidates to outside supportcontributing around $200,000, all told.

Wyoming allows same-day voter registration, so Pazell thinks the early surveying that led him to think Baldes could win were likely skewed by hundreds of new GOP voters coming in on Election Day to vote the party linevoters the canvassers never had a chance to persuade.

The Frontier Project's goal, Pazell says, is to "guide candidates from activist to election then reelection" and help them to craft intelligent policy positions. Pazell's strategic vision has earned the Libertarian Party a very rare state-level victory, and he predicts the party will "continue to grow and adapt" to new possibilities as they arise.

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Meet Marshall Burt, Who's About To Become the Libertarian Party's Only Sitting State Legislator - Reason

Shannon Bray only spent $400 on his campaign, but he came away with 3% of the vote in the U.S. Senate race in North Carolina.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. His name is Shannon Bray. His campaign staff was one person, just him. He only spent $400 on his run but he came away with roughly 168,000 votes.

There's only a difference of 97,000 votes between Republican Senator Thom Tillis and Democrat Cal Cunningham.

"None of us really come in expecting to win," said Shannon Bray, the libertarian candidate who ran to represent North Carolinians in the U.S. Senate.

Bray didn't win. It wasn't even close. However, he's happy with his small, but notable performance in the race.

"I was ecstatic," said Bray.

Currently, roughly 96,707 votes separate Sen. Tillis and Cunningham. Bray raked in 167,968 votes that some say could've made an impact on the overall race, and contributed to nobody being declared a winner yet, although Tillis has already claimed victory.

"Maybe I did take some republican votes, and maybe I did take some democratic votes, it's almost impossible to tell without me in the race, who would have gotten those," Bray said.

Bray believes half of the people who voted for him did so because they were fed up with their options on the red and blue ticket.

The number of people who voted for Bray is also far greater than the 46,363 voters who have registered libertarians in the state, as of Election Day. Mecklenburg County is home to 5,790 of them.

"We want the right to make our own choices in our homes and we don't want government interference," Bray said.

Bray said he has received calls from those blaming him for the race still in limbo, but he said, it's important those with his views are represented as well.

"The people of North Carolina chose to vote for me because the message must be resonating," he said.

Bray said his run was all an experiment, a litmus test, to see how he could do.

He admitted he never saw himself getting so much support and he now plans to run again for U.S. Senate in 2022.

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Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate puts a wedge in a race that is too close to call - WCNC.com

This past summer, third-years Audrey Unverferth and Evita Duffy founded the Chicago Thinker, a student newspaper publishing news and opinions from conservative and libertarian points of view. The papers purpose is to defend conservative and libertarian perspectives in a community that is increasingly intolerant of such voices, according to the Thinkers mission statement.

Unverferth, who serves as both editor-in-chief and publisher, and Duffy, the papers managing editor, hope that the Thinker provides a platform for conservative and libertarian students to express their ideas to the University of Chicago community. I think it's necessary to have a platform for conservatives and libertarians to thoughtfully speak, and then to hopefully engage with others, Unverferth said.

Part of our mission is to expose the student body to a different school of thought, to expose them to conservative and libertarian ideas that aren't usually seen in the campus community, Duffy said.

Duffy and Unverferth said the Thinkers founding was prompted by their perception that the campus community is unwilling to engage with conservative and libertarian ideas.

Last March, a post by the University of Chicagos Institute of Politics (IOP) featured Duffy holding a sign that read I vote because the coronavirus wont destroy America, but socialism will. The photo sparked widespread controversy, inspiring hundreds of posts on social media, some substantive and some aimed at Duffys personal character. The incident drew a response from IOP Director David Axelrod.

In May 2019, hundreds of students gathered to protest a bill that Brett Barbin, then a fourth-year College Council representative and head of the University of Chicago College Republicans, proposed to College Council that would have banned student life fees from being used to fund abortions.

The problem that we're currently facing on campus right now is that conservatives and libertarians are too afraid to speak because of the extraordinary social consequences that individuals like Evita and Brett Barbin have experienced, Unverferth said.

Nonetheless, Unverferth said the editors of the Thinker are open to publishing work that reflects other points of view. We happily consider work by those from across the political spectrum, she said. We love to communicate across the political aisle, and we disagree, behind closed doors, and also in our pages frequently, so we're not an echo chamber.

Most of the articles published so far by the Thinker address expressly political topics like qualified immunity and the 2020 elections, but Unverferth wants to publish other content in the future. I think it would be boring for our readers if we only focused on politics, she said. And so I would really like to expand to cover various arts events and sports games, et cetera.

Writers are going to focus on stories that they think are important to inform the student body [about] at UChicago, she said. They'll cover subjects on everything from what's happening on campus to what's happening abroad.

The Chicago Thinker is currently a digital-only publication, but Unverferth hopes to publish a physical edition in the future. Her plans, however, have been complicated given the ongoing pandemic. My goal is to go into print as soon as feasible, she said. I think life needs to resume a little bit more to normal, but I would really love to have a print edition by the end of the school year.

Unverferth confirmed that the Thinker received grant funding from Collegiate Network, a program that supports conservative and libertarian publications on college campuses. The organization is operated by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), a nonprofit that supports conservative college students by hosting debates and lectures, providing networking opportunities, and funding conservative student organizations, publications, and fellowships.

They provided us with a grant to launch our newspaper, said Unverferth. They provide mentorship. And in the case of the Chicago Thinker, they provided the funding to build our website.

Publications supported by Collegiate Network include The Princeton Tory, The Dartmouth Review, and the recently launched Danforth Dispatch at Washington University in St. Louis. ISIs website lists Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who started The Federalist as an undergraduate at Columbia University, and venture capitalist Peter Thiel, who started The Stanford Review as an undergraduate, among the organizations alumni.

Unverferth said that backing by the ISI will not influence editorial decisions at the Thinker. We choose how to spend our grant money, we choose what to publish, we chose our name, she said. They do not possess any editorial control whatsoever upon what we publish, but they have provided our primary source of funding.

Looking forward, Unverferth and Duffy hope to raise money to start printing physical copies of the paper. We're planning to create some form of fundraisers so that we can raise money in order to go into print, and more in conversations with various organizations and alumni and others to obtain funding, Unverferth said.

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Newly Launched Chicago Thinker Aims to Promote Conservative and Libertarian Views on Campus - The Chicago Maroon