Rep. Justin Amash, Outspoken Trump Critic, Launches Bid For Libertarian Presidential Nomination
Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan is seeking the Libertarian nomination for president.
Amash, 40, announced the news Tuesday on social media.
“Today, I launched an exploratory committee to seek the @LPNational’s nomination for president of the United States. Americans are ready for practical approaches based in humility and trust of the people,” Amash tweeted, along with a link to a campaign website.
Let’s do this. https://t.co/AhpQQhTauh
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) April 29, 2020
Amash has served as the U.S. Representative for Michigan’s 3rd District since 2011, when he was 31 years old, making him among the youngest members of Congress at the time. He resides in Cascade Charter Township. The congressman has been noted for using his official Facebook and Twitter accounts to post explanations of his votes.
https://www.facebook.com/justinamash/posts/1463514783687923
Amash served as a Republican until July of last year, when he parted ways with the party and declared himself an Independent. The congressman penned an editorial in The Washington Post explaining his decision and calling American politics a “partisan death spiral.”
“No matter your circumstance, I’m asking you to join me in rejecting the partisan loyalties and rhetoric that divide and dehumanize us,” Amash wrote.
In response to the column, President Donald Trump tweeted that he believed Amash to be “a total loser.”
Throughout his tenure in Congress, Amash has been a critic of Trump and many aspects of the political system. He’s criticized Attorney General William Barr, calling him “one of the architects of the surveillance state.” Amash has slammed Trump’s tariff policy and defended fellow Congressman Thomas Massie against criticism from the president. He called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a “Donald Trump Asset.”
Amash was the first Republican to call for Trump’s impeachment, a move that initially cost him donor support and motivated opponent campaigns to unseat him. However, Amash managed to out-fundraise all his opponents in the last three months of 2019 and had the best fundraising quarter of his career since leaving the Republican party, as The Inquisitr previously reported.
While he’s drawn criticism from Trump and GOP allies, Amash’s refusal to toe the party line has garnered him praise from both sides of the political aisle. In December, a group of 30 freshman Democrats pushed for Amash to be named impeachment manager in the Senate trial of Trump.
Third parties have yet to gain real traction in U.S. presidential elections — the most successful in modern history perhaps being Ross Perot’s 1992 Independent run for president, which garnered 19 percent of the vote, TIME reported.
