Jo Jorgensen 2020 presidential campaign
In 1996, Jorgensen was nominated by the Libertarian Party as its candidate for vice president in the 1996 election. The party's presidential nominee was free market writer and investment analyst Harry Browne. The Browne/Jorgensen ticket received 485,798 votes (0.5% of the popular vote) in the general election, which was won by incumbent president Bill Clinton. Jorgensen had previously run for South Carolina's 4th congressional district in 1992, receiving 4,286 votes (2.2% of the popular vote). In the Libertarian primaries, Jorgensen placed second in terms of overall votes cast, behind Future of Freedom Foundation founder Jacob Hornberger. Jorgensen won a single primary prior to the Convention, in Nebraska, on May 12, 2020. After Justin Amash entered and then exited the race Jacob Hornberger lost a significant number of votes and on the fourth round of balloting Jorgensen was nominated. She did not endorse anybody to be her running mate and after three ballots Spike Cohen was nominated. After her nomination, she went on to win the New Mexico primary on June 2, 2020, which had been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Jorgensen achieved ballot access in all 50 states and the District of Columbia on September 15, 2020. After the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Jorgensen's website crashed due to high volume of traffic. Jorgensen raised $3,442,156 on her presidential campaign, loaning $9,784 of her own money to her campaign and raising $3,415,793 from individual contributions. She spent $3,420,928 and has $106,132 in outstanding debts with $21,228 of ending cash in hand. Jorgensen has received endorsements from Kennedy, Peter Schiff, John Stossel, and Katherine Timpf, among others. She has also received endorsements from many former Libertarian candidates in the 2020 race, including Jacob Hornberger, Justin Amash, Adam Kokesh and Vermin Supreme. In addition, she received an endorsement from 2012 and 2016 Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.
Background
Jorgensen had previously been the Libertarian Party's vice presidential nominee in 1996, when she ran on a ticket with author Harry Browne. She is the party's first female presidential nominee.