WI: Gary Johnson does not run in 2012

What if Gary Johnson had stayed out of the 2012 race, both in the republican primary and as the libertarian candidate in the general election? Who would the libertarians nominate instead? How big of an impact would this have on the election?
 
Johnson did not change a single electoral vote in 2012. Even in Florida, which was very close, Obama got 50.01% of the total vote, to Romney's 49.13% and Johnson's 0.53% https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election_in_Florida,_2012 so even if one assumes (almost certainly wrongly) that every Johnson voter would have gone for Romney, Obama would still have carried the state. I don't see any other Libertarian candidate changing the results either. Ron Paul, had he been wiling to run (which I doubt--he would not want to hurt his son's future prospects in the GOP) could have gotten more votes than Johnson, but they would not have been enough to make a difference and in any event would have been drawn from both major parties.
 
The only case that I know of that the Libertarian candidate actually made a difference in a race at the Federal level was the Georgia Senate race in 2008. The Libertarian candidate picked up 3.4% of the total votes, keeping either of the big two candidates from picking up the 50.1% required by state law and throwing the election into a run off.

Torqumada
 

CalBear

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Who?

No one, and I mean no one, outside the Libertarian Party, would notice, much less actually care.

Might as well ask what would have happened if Rosanne Barr hadn't run.
 
The only case that I know of that the Libertarian candidate actually made a difference in a race at the Federal level was the Georgia Senate race in 2008. The Libertarian candidate picked up 3.4% of the total votes, keeping either of the big two candidates from picking up the 50.1% required by state law and throwing the election into a run off.

Torqumada

So Chambliss would have won n November instead of December---hardly a big deal.

Thee is a slightly better argument to be made that the Libertarians made a difference in the 1992 Georgia Senate race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Georgia,_1992

And very likely the Libertarians were responsible for Cantwell defeating Gorton in Washington 2000--which led to the Democrats taking control of the Senate some months later (after Jeffords left the GOP). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Washington,_2000
 
A lot of college men (who mostly now support Bernie Sanders) have different profile pics on Facebook.
 
Overall I'm guessing this doesn't change much, but there's always the chance he could run for the Senate instead, which in the event that he won (which, given his popularity in the state and the narrow result IOTL, I think is likely) might help boost his chances in 2016.
 
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