With the record unpopularity of Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, there was a bigger chance for a third-party presidential candidate to steal more of the vote come election day. So how many total votes did Gary Johnson get? The Libertarian Party nominee appealed to many constituents, even hitting a high of 9.9 percent of support on July 17, leaving him about five points away from qualifying a spot on the debate stage with Clinton and Trump.
According to POLITICO, he appealed to many voters because of his Republican-like idea of a free-market and small government mentality, while not being inflicted by religious right language. "Johnson speaks a different libertarian dialect, one that has appealed as much to Democrats disappointed by Hillary Clinton as to Republicans disgusted by Trump," POLITICO reported.
FiveThirtyEight even predicted that Johnson would poll at eight percent on Election Day — breaking the record of more than any third-party candidate in two decades.
But as the days grew closer towards Election Day, his favor slowly began to fade. As of 3 a.m. EST Gary Johnson's total votes hit 3,814,239, with approximately 3 percent of America voting for him.
While the number may be low, his run in the election proved that constituents are looking at and are interested in different parties of the ballots, opening the doors for more candidates in the next elections.
