Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson has been nominated the Libertarian Party candidate for president. He was also the party’s candidate for president during the 2012 election.
Delegates to the party's convention in Orlando on Sunday picked Johnson on the second ballot over Austin Petersen, the founder of The Libertarian Republic magazine, and anti-computer virus company founder John McAfee.
Johnson got about 1 percent of the popular vote in 2012.
But the party is hoping for a strong showing in November because of the deep unpopularity polls show for presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Johnson has said that he wouldn’t be running if he didn’t have a shot at winning.
“I wouldn’t be engaged in this right now if there weren’t the possibility of actually winning,” he told MSNBC this week.
Though he’s been in the double digits in three recent national polls of hypothetical matchups against Trump and Clinton, he needs to poll at least at 15 percent to be invited to presidential debates.
“Really key for us right now is just being in the polls that determines who’s in the debates,” he added.
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