WASHINGTON -- Presidential candidates rarely court District of Columbia voters, especially in person on Election Day.
While President Obama and Mitt Romney will be in Chicago and Boston, respectively, on Tuesday, Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson will be in the nation's capital trying to woo voters heading to the polls.
According to a media release, Johnson and Bruce Majors, the Libertarian candidate for D.C.'s non-voting congressional delegate, will be in the Dupont Circle neighborhood on Tuesday morning greeting voters at Precinct 15 at Foundry United Methodist Church, which "boasts an electoral history as one of D.C.'s higher-performing Libertarian polling places."
There's a good reason why Johnson is putting extra pressure on D.C. voters: The former New Mexico governor wants to place second in the nation's capital and upset Romney. A third-place finish for the Republican presidential nominee would be a huge symbolic victory for Libertarians.
"Beating one of the major parties would be a shot in the arm for any alternative party," Libertarian political strategist John Vaught LaBeaume previously told The Huffington Post. "And it would be evidence that the Libertarian Party has appeal in precincts of growing influence, and the GOP is on the wane, its appeal almost extinct with urban electorate."
Democratic candidates have traditionally held an overwhelming advantage in District of Columbia elections. No Republican has ever won D.C.'s electoral votes since the 23rd Amendment gave residents in the nation's capital the right to vote for president starting with the 1964 elections.
Roughly 6 percent of D.C. voters are registered Republicans, according to the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics.
Johnson's campaign spokesman told HuffPost in October that the candidate is in favor of "full voting representation" for D.C. voters, in addition to D.C. budget autonomy.
Will those local issues be enough to boost Libertarians in the nation's capital on Election Day? Stay tuned ...
