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A new Cato Institute study released today urges pollsters, political strategists, candidates,

and the media to take note of the Libertarian vote in the upcoming midterm elections.

The Libertarian Vote by Cato Executive Vice President David Bowes,

an Executive Director of America's Future Foundation David Kirby,

finds that at an estimated 13% of the electorate

libertarians comprise a significant swing vote.

Noting that the Libertarian vote shifted sharply in 2004,

the study concludes that if that trend continues into 2006 and 2008,

Republicans will lose elections they would otherwise win.

Joining us today is one of the study's authors David Kirby.

David, what does your study find?

Would you say that libertarians are the new purple?

Well, you know, they might as well be.

The story of the last decade in American politics has been a story of polarization that the nation is evenly divided

Red versus blue, Liberal versus Conservative, Republican versus Democrat right down the middle,

but it turns out that this assumption of the last decade may be wrong.

Our study has found interestingly, if you look at ideology as a four-way matrix

rather than the one-way liberal versus conservative divide, turns out that

one, libertarians are about 13% of all Americans nationally, or 15% of the voters, which is about the size of the religious right.

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