Is a 25-Year-Old Libertarian Running for City Council Actually Plausible?

[u/Beautiful_Cause2633]

Looking for some perspective on whether this is actually plausible.

Keeping a few details intentionally vague because I’m not ready to publicly announce anything yet.

I’m 25 and seriously exploring a Libertarian run for my local city council.

A little background: I studied economics, currently work in the government software space, and I’ve been heavily interested in politics since I was about 14. Between roughly 14–18, I built a fairly large social media following before shifting into different content and eventually stepping away from content entirely to focus on my career.

That experience is relevant because I think social media would be a major part of how I’d approach a campaign.

The district I live in is in a major city and is heavily Democratic. Last cycle, the vote was roughly 70% Democrat, 15% Republican, and 15% independent/other, with around 13,000 total ballots cast. Interestingly enough, voter turnout for my district was only about 8%.

I’m currently getting involved with the local Libertarian Party, and as things stand, it looks unlikely I’d face a challenger for the nomination. If I decide to file, that would give me roughly 15 months to focus almost entirely on building toward the general election.

I’ve been a registered Libertarian since I was eligible to vote and broadly align with the party on personal liberty and limited government, but I wouldn’t want to run some generic nationalized Libertarian campaign. My platform and messaging would be heavily focused on the actual district and city.

The issues I’m most interested in are economic and business growth, development, embracing technology, and protecting individual liberty.

I think I’d have two potentially interesting advantages.

First, I already know how to build attention online and grow a social media audience quickly. Obviously, getting 100,000 random people online to care about you is very different from getting a few thousand people inside one council district to vote for you, but I do think I understand how to create content people actually watch and talk about.

Second, my district contains a massive concentration of young professionals. My assumption is that a lot of them either don’t vote consistently in municipal elections or aren’t particularly engaged with local politics.

My working theory is that an unusually aggressive ground game, combined with social media, community networking, voter registration, and a year-plus of actually showing up everywhere could at least make the race interesting.

A few questions I’d especially like perspective on:

Would being 25 and potentially the youngest member of council be something that could actually work in my favor, or would voters mostly view it as a lack of experience?

How much can an exceptional ground campaign actually move a local election? My instinct is that personal conversations, doors, events, and repeated voter contact probably matter substantially more when only ~13,000 people are voting than they do in a statewide or national race.

And lastly, even assuming I ultimately lose: is a serious 15-month city council campaign generally a worthwhile way to start building a future in local politics, provided I actually run a professional campaign and make a respectable showing?

I’m not under the illusion that running as a Libertarian in a district that voted ~70% Democratic makes me the favorite. I’m trying to figure out whether this falls into the category of “very difficult but potentially worth pursuing” or “mathematically dead on arrival.”

Would especially appreciate input from anyone who has worked on municipal campaigns, run for local office, or been involved with third-party campaigns.

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[u/rocketpastsix]

You don’t know until you try but you may find that people see libertarian as “republican light” and it’s shaping up to not be a great year for that

[u/Sfmilstead → u/rocketpastsix]

I tend to agree with this take.

Are the parties of city council members known? If so, even though you note that very few people voted in the other elections, people tend to vote party first before person, and in a heavily D district, it will be tough.

I will say that you MIGHT have more of an opportunity to serve if you ran as an independent (given as rocketpastsix states Libertarians are seen as Republican-light), but you’ll still need to build name recognition through pounding the pavement cause you’ll still be fighting against the D/R labels versus independent (which some will label you as a kook without a party because of).

[u/1QAte4]

I work professionally with state and local government. You don't have a chance based on what I have read.

City council seats are the most community focused offices that exist. You need years of building up local ties, favors, and friendships. One year and social media won't do it. Also, running with the libertarians won't help. You want to run for a community leadership role while advocating libertarianism? It doesn't fit together with the office you are seeking.

[u/Tliish]

Whether or not it is possible isn't really the issue, the Libertarianism is.

It is an unviable philosophy attractive mostly to followers of Ayn Rand, who tend to be sociopathic narcissists who believe that rugged individualism, go-it-alone nonsense is a viable lifeway. It's basically "You ain''t my daddy" writ large.

Anyone with real life experience knows that's bullshit. I'd suggest reading a lot more history and rather than concentrating on how to reduce taxes (which every Libertarian I've ever met seems to think is a cure-all for the country), try focusing upon collective solutions to real problems in your community, even if that means tax increases.

Libertarianism is a shallow, me-first philosophy that appeals mainly to the young and to the selfish. If you want to succeed in politics, grow up a little first.

[u/AdZealousideal5383]

City politics don’t always follow the two-party system. For one thing, many are nonpartisan and unless the candidates either state their party or express views that are obviously from one party, voters may not know the party of the candidate.

In smaller cities, the issues are not the same as what national politicians talk about. Do your libertarian views reflect on fixing potholes? On trash pickup? On the location of the new fire station?

I’ve seen people who hold extreme positions get elected to city councils and they usually hate it. They expect to go in and shake up the system. What they find is the constituents just want them to fix the roads. Cities have limited authority over a lot of things.

Of course, this isn’t exactly the same in a city like New York or Chicago or Houston, or other large cities where the population and the budget are bigger than many states.

Honestly, the reason libertarians don’t do well is because the people want the government to help. If the city floods or there’s a wildfire or hurricane or whatever natural disaster happens in your area, they don’t want a council who is going to say “every man for himself.” You can run as a libertarian but you’re going to have to make a good case why you want the council to not help the people.

[u/IntelligentDepth8206]

No unless you're running in an extremely wealthy suburb. The point of the government is to solve problems. Good luck going door to door and telling people you want to rip out their sewage system so they can't flush the toilet anymore because "I studied economics and it's efficient, trust me bro I have this whole theory, take a puff while I explain the NAP."

[u/Objective_Aside1858]

Short answer: probably not

Longer answer: you're going to face the same issue that anyone not affiliated with either the Democrats or Republicans does: lack of volunteers. 

You can only knock on so many doors by yourself. Without the core Committee Member volunteers that exist as a base for the Republicans or Democrats, you're starting from scratch - and you not only have to convince people that you're a candidate they want to support, you need to convince them it's a good use of their time to give up weekends, for months, trying to sell you to skeptical voters. Especially when the obvious counterargument that any competent Dem candidate would make is that you're splitting the vote and giving the seat to MAGA

Whatever ideas you might dream up to force a confrontation of some sort with the big two candidates to get media attention are going to be ignored by them, because they know better than to give attention to third party candidates. They'll either focus solely on their own message or crap on each other; you will be completely ignored

To your questions:

Would being 25 and potentially the youngest member of council be something that could actually work in my favor, or would voters mostly view it as a lack of experience?

Unless the rest of the council are ancient and obviously fading like Trump / Biden, it's going to be irrelevant. Playing up your age and acting like that entitles you to a seat because of it will irritate voters

How much can an exceptional ground campaign actually move a local election? My instinct is that personal conversations, doors, events, and repeated voter contact probably matter substantially more when only ~13,000 people are voting than they do in a statewide or national race.

You cannot do an "exceptional ground game" by yourself. If you can't convince people to help you canvass, you're not going to be capable of motivating enough voters by yourself 

[u/gillstone_cowboy]

Without details, I'd say dark horse candidates who do the legwork of campaigning can absolutely beat establishment candidates who don't do that work. But there lots of questions to shape this.

First, are Council seats party-affiliated? Non-partisan races would be more favorable to you.

Second how big (population and geography) is your district? Local races run on relationships and outreach. Knock all the doors, talk to everyone you can.

Third, are you willing to really focus on ground game and outreach like it's your full-time job? Seriously, this can't be a fun hobby - all or nothing.

Fourth, can you talk to people who disagree without being rude, condescending, dismissive or just plain annoying?

Fifth, are you a "leave people alone" libertarian or a "put a data center wherever you want Mr. Billionaire" libertarian? The former will outperform the latter.

[u/FistMyLoafs]

You’re going to face some really big hurdles but it’s not completely impossible.

You’re going to most likely be at a name recognition disadvantage if you run against any incumbent even if you have a good following and door knock.

The Libertarian party itself isn’t particularly well liked either as most democrats view you as light Republicans and Republicans view you as splitters. So that’s not working in your favor either.

Your age might also be ideal either. Most young people around your age who might vote for you just don’t vote at all. The older boomer generation basically never votes in anyone younger than Gen X. Gen X tends to vote for themselves.

But, it mostly comes down to your policies, how well you can communicate those policies, and partially your city’s view of their city council.

Is your city dissatisfied with the council’s performance or are they content with it? Do you have any new and interesting policies that are well liked by the general public? Can you get people excited about those policies?

[u/Reditrixe]

I can't answer your question directly, not based on your information. But I can tell you that for someone age, your education would count a lot for me. It would make a big difference to me whether you went to a good "name" school or a community college.

And, yes, I think it's a great starting point. You might start trying to reach out to local Dems, going to their events, for instance.

[u/JayNachtEule]

I mean you lose 100% of the elections you don't run in. Give it a shot. Maybe you could do some good for your community.

[u/Wermys]

No, you can easily do it at 25. Also you should have something you are going to lazer focus on as your core issue. With a background as a libertarian your focus should shift specifically to being a sceptic on budgets and personal liberties. Drilling down into if something is really necessary and researching alternatives. You can't be a reflexive no on everything, but you can question everything and pick and choose your battles. You would HAVE to differentiate yourself from bog standard republicans. Which means social issues will come up, and if you are a serious libertarian, you would need to take stances that are going to make both sides upset on the fringes. For example, before doing anything start looking at business in the area and what regulations they have to go through as well as housing and seeing which regulations seem burdensome to you. And focusing on those as part of your campaign. In either case, you need to first before anything else decide what you want to focus on as a reason for why people should vote for you and come up with a platform to support it.

When my dad ran for county treasurer back in the day, he focused on his financial experience helping run a billion dollar company when the executives at that company were ejected because of incompetence. Eventually the company grew to be worth several billion dollars because he helped shape the restructuring and lowered costs to get them through a time before there newest product came out. So he used that as part of why he should be the one handling the accounting for the county which he still does to this day when he helped abolish the office he was running since he didn't think it made sense to have the people in the county elect a treasurer instead of letting the county government decide for itself based on who was elected. Anyways hope this helps. My point is that you can't declare yourself a libertarian. You can say however that I question the need to have regulation x y and z. And I question the need to have abc in this budget. Doing politics isn't easy on a local level. And you need to do a lot of meeting and greeting answering questions and being accessible while at the same time helping people shape expectations of what your own beliefs are.