CHARLOTTESVILLE — Paul Jones has qualified to appear on the ballot this fall as the Libertarian Party’s challenger in the Fifth Congressional District.

Jones is running against GOP incumbent Robert Hurt and Democrat challenger Lawrence Gaughan.

Jones has lived in Charlottesville for 45 year and has been a businessman, teacher, and a freelance writer. He has a degree from John Marshall University and continues to be a student of history and has been a docent for the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society for 20 years.

Ballot access, his campaign points out, is very difficult for third party candidates in Virginia but Jones was able to clear the hurdle with the help of volunteers and the party’s ballot headliner.

“This would not have been possible without the support of Robert Sarvis (the party’s U.S. Senate candidate) and the many volunteers who helped gather signatures,” Jones said. “I look forward to the campaign and I hope my opponents are ready to answer questions on the problems our country faces and what can
be done to alleviate them.”

Jones believes Virginia is becoming a more libertarian state.

“The Republicans and Democrats have gotten us where we are. They don’t have solutions except more spending and higher taxes, and that is not working for Americans. The voters are starting to realize that,” Jones said in a release sent to The Herald by the candidate. “I will be looking out for the taxpayers and be a candidate ‘of the people’, not ‘of the government.’”

Jones describes himself as a strong proponent of privacy and property rights and aims to be a very real alternative to the “big government candidates.”