Libertarian Presidential Nominee Bitten By Bat, Skips Campaign Appearance To Get Rabies Shot

Libertarian presidential nominee Jo Jorgensen announced Friday that she would skip out on a campaign bus tour stop Saturday morning in order to get a rabies vaccine after she was bitten by a wild bat a few days earlier.

Jorgensen, a psychology lecturer at Clemson University who secured the party’s presidential nomination back in May, made the announcement on Twitter and said she was receiving the rabies vaccine as a precaution on the advice of her doctor.

“I will not be able to attend the campaign rally tomorrow morning. I will be getting a rabies vaccine as a precaution after having been bitten by a bat near the start of this campaign tour,” said Jorgensen.

The presidential candidate also added that she would still be able to speak at an event in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, later in the day, and that she was simply “pausing for a few hours” to get the rabies shot.

After political analyst Jeff Greenfield commented that “the Libertarian presidential nominee was bitten by a rabid bat” — and said “sometimes, it’s best to let the facts speak for themselves” —  Jorgensen retorted that the bat was not actually carrying rabies.

“I agree, we should let the facts speak for themselves. The fact is, it wasn’t rabid,” said Jorgensen, who said in a different tweet that she was looking for her cat outside when the bat bit her. She also said she found the cat.

Jorgensen, who was the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential nominee in 1996, secured the nomination after Congressman Justin Amash (L-MI) decided against running for the presidency. Her running mate, an activist and podcaster named Spike Cohen, wrote prior to being selected for the position that he, “as an individual candidate,” has a policy preference for anarchism, according to the libertarian publication Reason Magazine.

Asked about the viability of a third-party candidate in a general election, Jorgensen told C-Span back in July that “I think the only wasted vote is one for Trump or Biden, because they’re going to give us more of what we don’t want.”

“If you want higher taxes, if you want more bungling in government, if you want to keep the troops all over the world, if you want more pollution, if you want more expensive health care, then by all means, vote for Trump and Biden,” she said.

In the 2016 general election, former Governor and Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson won roughly 3.28% of the national vote, according to Reason Magazine. His running mate was Bill Weld, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts.