Actions

Former ASU QB supports 3rd-party prez candidate

Posted at 1:21 PM, May 23, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-23 16:22:02-04

Presumptive Republican nominee for president Donald Trump has quite the laundry list of current and former athletes supporting him.

Former Arizona State Sun Devils quarterback Rudy Carpenter has chosen to go another direction.

Carpenter, who played for ASU from 2005-08, publicly announced his support of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson for president on Monday. Johnson is running to become the Libertarian Party's presidential nominee.

Johnson, who was the Libertarian nominee for president in 2012, received nearly 1.3 million votes nationwide, good for roughly 1 percent of the total vote. That made him the third-place vote-getter, albeit well behind Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, both of whom received over 60 million votes.

But if a recent poll is any indication, Johnson may receive more support this time around.

Carpenter, who recently discussed his victories over the Arizona Wildcats with ABC15, describes himself as a "conservative-leaning libertarian." He said he "can and would" vote for Trump, but he likes Johnson personally.

Carpenter isn't the first former ASU QB to make his voice heard in the political arena. Andrew Walter, who played at ASU from 2001-04, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Arizona's 9th congressional district in 2014. He lost to Wendy Rogers in the Republican primary election.