Gary Johnson 2016 presidential campaign
Gary Johnson received 4,489,233 total votes and 3.27% of the national vote, coming third in the nation and setting a record for the Libertarian Party's best ever electoral result in the process. In terms of the Libertarian Party's electoral history, he bested Ed Clark's previous record-setting 1.06% percent of the total vote in the 1980 presidential election, as well as his own record-setting 1,275,923 votes in the 2012 presidential election. His share of the national vote was also the highest for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot's 8.4% showing in the 1996 presidential election. The highest percentage of votes received by Johnson was in New Mexico (where he was governor from 1995-2003), where he received 9.3%.
2012 United States presidential election in New Mexico
Prior to the election, 17 news organizations considered this a state Obama would win, or otherwise considered as a safe blue state. President Obama and Vice President Biden carried New Mexico with 52.99% of the vote to Mitt Romney's 42.84%, a victory margin of 10.15 percentage points. Libertarian Gary Johnson, a former Republican who served two terms as Governor of New Mexico from 1995 to 2003, garnered 3.55% of the vote, his strongest statewide performance in the nation, and the strongest 3rd party showing in the state since 2000 (although that was easily surpassed by Johnson in 2016, when he received nearly 10% of the vote in New Mexico).