Libertarian Who Ran Against Terry McAuliffe Gets on Virginia Senate Ballot

On Thursday, libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis qualified to be on the ballot statewide in this fall’s U.S. Senate race in Virginia.

Republican Ed Gillespie is trying to knock off Democrat incumbent Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), and Sarvis may be the spoiler, especially if he manages to get invited to statewide debates. Sarvis could peel away the anti-Warner vote that may have normally gone to Gillespie in a two-person race.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, “Sarvis submitted more than 19,000 total signatures to ensure he met the requirement of 10,000 valid signatures from registered Virginia voters, including 400 from each of the state’s eleven Congressional districts.”

“The ballot-qualification process is designed to be long and arduous, to minimize competition against the vested interests that control our politics,” Sarvis said, according to the Times-Dispatch.

Sarvis, who is from Northern Virginia, was also on the gubernatorial ballot in 2013 and “received the highest vote total of any third-party candidate in 40 years” in a race in which Democrat Terry McAuliffe eked out a victory against conservative Ken Cuccinelli.