‘Fred Who’ Wins 346 Votes

Fred Karger

Josh Nathan-Kazis January 11, 2012

Fred Karger, the gay Jewish Republican presidential candidate the Forward profiled last week, had a bit of a rough time in the New Hampshire primaries last night.

Karger, whose slogan is “Fred Who?”, garnered 346 votes, good for about .1% of the GOP vote.

He did have a dogfight with former candidate Michele Bachmann, whose name remained on the ballot even though she quit the race last week.

After swapping positions with Bachmann all night long, he wound up just three votes behind her, with all 301 precincts reporting.

For a little perspective, Karger trailed the last place top-tier candidate Rick Santorum, who won 23,085 votes.

Karger did beat onetime frontrunner Herman Cain, who earned only 155 votes.

Karger also earned fewer than half as many votes as Vermin Supreme, a candidate in New Hampshire for the Democratic presidential nomination, who appeared at a recent local debate wearing a boot hat.

Attempts to reach Karger on Wednesday morning were unsuccessful.

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email [email protected].

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO