Georgia Senate run-off: Chase Oliver, the obscure candidate who could impact US national politics
- Georgia’s election run-off on December 6 could determine control of the US Senate after Tuesday’s midterms failed to produced a winner
- Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver drew some 2 per cent votes, leaving the two top contenders with less than 50 per cent of the vote
Few voted for him, but he has plunged American politics into uncertainty: Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver won just enough votes in his Senate election race to force a run-off that could shape the rest of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Oliver grabbed some two per cent or 81,000 votes in Georgia’s Senate poll at Tuesday’s midterm elections – enough to prevent his more powerful rivals, Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, from taking the seat outright.
Now that sliver of support for Oliver, a 37-year-old Star Trek fan who ran his campaign from his basement, could determine the winner of Warnock and Walker’s December 6 run-off – and therefore, potentially, control of the upper house of the US legislature.
Despite the frustration levelled at Oliver for the costly run-off and keeping US politics on a knife-edge for weeks, he’s not upset.
“You can’t blame a candidate for just being an option on the ballot,” he told Vice News this week.
He told The New York Times: “I don’t think you can spoil something that’s already rotten … And I think that’s what the two-party system in Washington, DC, currently is – it’s rotten”.
