Jo Jorgensen (born May 1, 1957) is an American

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's en ...

political activist and academic. Jorgensen was the Libertarian Party's nominee for

president of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

in the 2020 election, in which she finished third in the popular vote with about 1.9 million votes, 1.2% of the national total. She was previously the party's nominee for

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

in the 1996 election, as

Harry Browne Harry Edson Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006) was an American writer, politician, and investment advisor. He was the Libertarian Party's Presidential nominee in the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000. He authored 12 books that in total hav ...

running mate A running mate is a person running together with another person on a joint ticket during an election. The term is most often used in reference to the person in the subordinate position (such as the vice presidential candidate running with a p ...

. She is a full-time lecturer of

psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...

Clemson University Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enr ...

Early life and career

Jorgensen was born on May 1, 1957, in

Libertyville, Illinois Libertyville is a village in Lake County, Illinois, United States, and a northern suburb of Chicago. It is located west of Lake Michigan on the Des Plaines River. The 2020 census population was 20,579. It is part of Libertyville Township, whi ...

, and raised in neighboring Grayslake. She is an alumna of

Grayslake Central High School Grayslake Central High School (also known as Grayslake Central or GCHS) is a public four-year high school located in Grayslake, Illinois and is part of Grayslake Community High School District 127. Founded in 1946, the school services the Chi ...

. Her grandparents were Danish immigrants. Jorgensen received a Bachelor of Science degree in

Baylor University Baylor University is a private Baptist Christian research university in Waco, Texas. Baylor was chartered in 1845 by the last Congress of the Republic of Texas. Baylor is the oldest continuously operating university in Texas and one of th ...

in 1979 and a master's degree in

business administration Business administration, also known as business management, is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. From the point of view of management ...

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = " The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , p ...

in 1980. She began her career at IBM working with computer systems, leaving to become part owner and President of Digitech, Inc. She received a Ph.D. in

Industrial and Organizational Psychology Industrial and organizational psychology (I-O psychology), an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior in the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupationa ...

from

in 2002. She has taught full-time at Clemson since 2006.

Political career

1992 U.S. House of Representatives campaign

Jorgensen first ran for office in the 1992 United States House of Representatives election. She ran as a Libertarian to represent SC-04, in northwest South Carolina, against incumbent Democrat Liz J. Patterson and Republican challenger Bob Inglis. Jorgensen placed third with 2.2% of the total vote.

1996 vice presidential campaign

Before the 1996 United States presidential election, the Libertarian Party nominated Jorgensen for vice president, as Harry Browne's running mate. She was nominated on the first ballot with 92% of the vote. She participated in a vice-presidential debate televised nationwide by

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

on October 22, along with

Herbert Titus Herbert William "Herb" Titus (October 17, 1937 – June 20, 2021) was an American attorney, writer, and politician. He was a candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1996 U.S. presidential election on the Constitution Party ...

of the Taxpayers Party and

Mike Tompkins Mike Tompkins is a U.S. politician who was the Natural Law Party vice presidential candidate during the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Education and career Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he graduated from Harvard University in 197 ...

of the Natural Law Party. Browne and Jorgensen, who were on the ballot in all 50 states and D.C., received 485,759 votes, finishing in fifth place with 0.5% of the popular vote. This was the Libertarian Party's best performance since

1980 Events January * January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission. * January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC. * January 9 – In ...

2020 presidential campaign

On August 13, 2019, Jorgensen filed with the FEC to run for the Libertarian presidential nomination in the 2020 election. She formally launched her campaign at the November 2, 2019,

Libertarian Party of South Carolina The South Carolina Libertarian Party is a ballot-qualified political party in the state of South Carolina. It is the state affiliate party of the national Libertarian Party of the United States. The state chair is Casey Crowe. Elected officials ...

convention before participating in the South Carolina Libertarian presidential debate the same day. In the non-binding Libertarian primaries, Jorgensen was second in the cumulative popular vote, winning two of the 12 primaries. On May 23, 2020, Jorgensen became the Libertarian presidential nominee, making her the first woman to be the Libertarian nominee and the only female 2020 presidential candidate with ballot access to over 270 electoral votes.

Spike Cohen Jeremy "Spike" Cohen (born June 28, 1982) is an American libertarian political activist, entrepreneur, and podcaster. He was the Libertarian Party's nominee for vice president of the United States in 2020, serving as Jo Jorgensen's running ma ...

, a mostly unknown figure in mainstream politics, was nominated for vice president. The same day, Jorgensen's supporters repurposed

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...

's unofficial 2016 campaign slogan, "I'm With Her". The slogan trended on Twitter that night and made national headlines. She registered minimal support in

opinion polling An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a survey or a poll (although strictly a poll is an actual election) is a human research survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions ...

. Jorgensen released a list of potential Supreme Court nominees in September 2020 in response to the vacancy on the Court created by Justice

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...

's death. Jorgensen received more than 1.8 million votes in the general election, about 1.2% of the national total. After the election, several media outlets speculated that Jorgensen's candidacy resulted in

vote splitting Vote splitting is an electoral effect in which the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates, and increases the chance of winning for a dissimilar candidate. Vote spl ...

significant enough to be decisive in Democrat Joe Biden's victory over Republican

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...

, pointing to Jorgensen's vote share being higher than Biden's margin of victory over Trump in multiple

battleground states In American politics, the term swing state (also known as battleground state or purple state) refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election, most often referring to pre ...

Political positions

Healthcare and social security

Jorgensen supports a

free-market healthcare In a system of free-market healthcare, prices for healthcare products and services are set freely by agreement between patients and health care providers, which are subject to the laws and forces of supply and demand and free from any interventio ...

system financed by individual spending accounts that could keep any savings, which she believes would increase healthcare providers' incentive to compete by meeting consumer demand for low-cost services. She opposes

single-payer healthcare Single-payer healthcare is a type of universal healthcare in which the costs of essential healthcare for all residents are covered by a single public system (hence "single-payer"). Single-payer systems may contract for healthcare services from ...

, calling it "disastrous". Jorgensen supports replacing

Social Security Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

with individual retirement accounts. In the final debate of the 2020 primaries, candidate Jacob Hornberger accused Jorgensen of "support ngthe

welfare state A welfare state is a form of government in which the state (or a well-established network of social institutions) protects and promotes the economic and social well-being of its citizens, based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equita ...

through

and Medicare". In response, she called Social Security a "

Ponzi scheme A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are comin ...

". She then expressed the desire to allow people to opt out of the program on her first day in office, while emphasizing the

constitutional A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these prin ...

inability of a president to unilaterally end the program without

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

's support, as well as the need for the government to fulfill existing Social Security obligations. Under Jorgensen's plan, those who opt out would put 6.2% of their payroll taxes in individual retirement accounts and receive prorated Social Security benefits for existing contributions as zero-coupon bonds for retirement.

Criminal justice and drug policy

Jorgensen opposes federal civil asset forfeiture and qualified immunity. She opposes the

war on drugs The war on drugs is a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States.Cockburn and St. Clair, 1 ...

and supports abolishing drug laws, promising to pardon all nonviolent drug offenders. She has urged the demilitarization of police.

Foreign policy and defense

Jorgensen opposes embargoes,

economic sanctions Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they ...

, and

foreign aid In international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. Ai ...

; she supports non-interventionism,

armed neutrality A neutral country is a state that is neutral towards belligerents in a specific war or holds itself as permanently neutral in all future conflicts (including avoiding entering into military alliances such as NATO, CSTO or the SCO). As a type of ...

, and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from abroad.

Immigration, economics, and trade

Jorgensen calls for

deregulation Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a ...

, arguing that it would reduce poverty. She supports cutting government spending to reduce taxes. Jorgensen supports the freedom of American citizens to travel and trade, calls for the elimination of

trade barrier Trade barriers are government-induced restrictions on international trade. According to the theory of comparative advantage, trade barriers are detrimental to the world economy and decrease overall economic efficiency. Most trade barriers work o ...

s and tariffs, and supports the repeal of quotas on the number of people who can legally enter the United States to work, visit, or reside. In a Libertarian presidential primary debate, Jorgensen said she would immediately stop construction on President

's border wall. During another primary debate she blamed anti-immigration sentiment on disproportionate media coverage of crimes by immigrants. She argued that immigration helps the economy and that the blending of cultures is beneficial.

COVID-19

Jorgensen has characterized the U.S. government's response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

as overly bureaucratic and

authoritarian Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...

, calling restrictions on individual behavior (such as stay-at-home orders) and corporate

bailout A bailout is the provision of financial help to a corporation or country which otherwise would be on the brink of bankruptcy. A bailout differs from the term ''bail-in'' (coined in 2010) under which the bondholders or depositors of global sys ...

s "the biggest assault on our liberties in our lifetime". Jorgensen opposes government mask mandates, considering mask-wearing a matter of personal choice. She argues that mask-wearing would be widely adopted without government intervention because

market competition In economics, competition is a scenario where different Economic agent, economic firmsThis article follows the general economic convention of referring to all actors as firms; examples in include individuals and brands or divisions within the sa ...

would drive businesses to adopt either mask-required or mask-optional policies, allowing consumers the freedom to choose their preferred environment. Jorgensen has invoked the analogy of

dollar voting Dollar voting is an analogy that refers to the theoretical impact of consumer choice on producers' actions by means of the flow of consumer payments to producers for their goods and services. Overview In some principles-of-economics textbooks of ...

to argue that consumer preferences would shape businesses' policies on face masks in the absence of a government mandate.

Personal life

Jorgensen is married and has two adult daughters and a grandson. She briefly paused her presidential campaign after her mother's death on September 3, 2020.

Electoral history

, - , , colspan=5 , Republican gain from Democratic , -

References

External links

*
Issue Positions and quotes
at On the Issues
Profile
at

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) ...

* * , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Jorgensen, Jo 1957 births Living people 1996 United States vice-presidential candidates 20th-century American politicians 20th-century American women politicians 21st-century American women politicians American libertarians American people of Danish descent American women academics American women business executives Baylor University alumni Businesspeople from Illinois Businesspeople from South Carolina Candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election Clemson University alumni Clemson University faculty Female candidates for President of the United States Female candidates for Vice President of the United States Libertarian Party (United States) presidential nominees Libertarian Party (United States) vice presidential nominees Non-interventionism People from Lake County, Illinois Organizational psychologists South Carolina Libertarians Southern Methodist University alumni Women in South Carolina politics 21st-century American politicians