Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party's New Leader Has No Interest in Playing Kingmaker

"There's no deals that can be made for a cabinet position when you're sacrificing our set of principles in our platform," says Evan McMahon.

Eric Boehm | 5.29.2026 1:15 PM

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(Photo courtesy Evan McMahon; Indiana Libertarian Party)

As the new leader of America's largest third party, Evan McMahon doesn't plan on playing kingmaker to help Democrats or Republicans get elected.

"The proper approach for a Libertarian candidate to take is to be a libertarian and run," says McMahon, who was elected the party's new chair at its convention last weekend. "Not to seek an armistice with somebody who's going to grow the state, who's going to bomb and kill children in other countries."

Most of the time, that would be a rather noncontroversial take. In recent years, however, the Libertarian Party has been controlled by a faction that toyed with the idea that the best way to achieve pro-liberty political change is by cozying up with one of the two major parties. In practice, that meant doing things like inviting Donald Trump to speak at the Libertarian National Convention two years ago.

Instead of playing spoiler, the idea was to use Libertarian voters as leverage to gain a seat at the table (or perhaps a position in the cabinet), even if doing so came at the expense of the party's own nominees. That has been a controversial approach within the party, which has seen membership and donations decline, and has yielded few positive results—yes, Trump freed Ross Ulbricht, but most of his second term has largely been a libertarian nightmare.

McMahon wants a clean break with all of that.

"There's no deals that can be made for a........

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