How Much Will Michigan Loss Hurt Gary Johnson’s Vote Total?

While some are still holding out hope for a last minute court decision, most indications are that Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party will not appear on the presidential ballot in Michigan this year.  The loss amounts to the only significant black-eye in an otherwise successful ballot access drive that puts the former New Mexico Governor on 48 states and D.C. in November.  Oklahoma, the other state where Johnson failed to qualify, is notoriously impossible for minor parties.  Voters in that state will be limited to

How much does the Michigan loss hurt?  The answer is somewhat, but it’s not devastating.

It turns out that dating back to the 1980 campaign, Michigan has never contributed more than 6% of the LP nominee’s national vote total.

In 2008, only about 4.5% of Bob Barr’s national vote total came from Michigan.

Here are the rest of the numbers…

2004 – 2.7% of Michael Badnarik’s vote total
2000 – 4.3% of Harry Browne’s vote total
1996 – 5.7% of Harry Browne’s vote total
1992 – 3.5% of Andre Marrou’s vote total
1988 – 4.2% of Ron Paul’s vote total
1984 – 4.4% of David Bergland’s vote total
1980 -4.5% of Ed Clark’s vote total

The 1980 campaign saw Clark poll 41,597 votes in Michigan or about 1% of the vote.