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Angela Elise McArdle (born June 7, 1983) is an American politician who is the chair of the Mises Caucus political action committee since June 2025. She previously served as the 22nd chair of the Libertarian National Committee (LNC) from May 2022 to February 2025, secretary of the Libertarian Party of California from April 2018 to April 2019 and a former board member and organizer of the Mises Caucus before May 2022.
Under her tenure as LNC Chair, McArdle was claimed to have played a key role in leveraging the Libertarian Party's spoiler effect into securing a pardon for Ross Ulbricht by Donald Trump, something McArdle herself denies, instead arguing that Trump had a signed pardon ready to go from 2020 that he was foiled from delivering by disloyal underlings.
McArdle received her Bachelor's Degree in Organizational Leadership from Biola University in 2009 and a Paralegal Certificate from UCLA Extension in 2013. She is also trained as a craniosacral therapist through the Upledger Institute.
In 2021 and 2022, McArdle was a candidate for Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. She was endorsed by the Mises Caucus, of which she was also a board member. She was elected to the position at the 2022 Libertarian National Convention on May 28.
At Porcfest 2021, an annual libertarian festival held in New Hampshire, Executive Director of the Free State Project, Jeremy Kauffman and McArdle debated which strategy is more effective, the libertarian party strategy or the free state movement strategy. Kauffman argued that, "There are more people in this room that are elected members to the NH House of Representatives and former members of the Libertarian Party than there are Libertarian Party members nationwide." McArdle then counter-argued that while she wants to see the Free State Project succeed, it is her contention that the Free State Project could not have existed without the political infrastructure provided by the LP developed over the course of five decades.
McArdle was openly critical of Joe Exotic's short-lived campaign in the 2024 Libertarian Party presidential primaries.
In February 2023, McArdle spoke at the Rage Against the War Machine Rally, co-hosted with the People's Party, where she called on a cut to all aid to Ukraine, and for Ukraine to surrender all of its Russian-occupied territories. In June, McArdle also wrote an op-ed for Newsweek arguing that Russian forces were not committing a genocide in Ukraine.
McArdle notably endorsed Libertarian nominee Chase Oliver in the 2024 United States presidential election as a vehicle for Donald Trump's victory. She said that Oliver would take more votes from the Democratic nominee, and that it would be challenging to get libertarians and right of center independents to vote for him, so it would make the most sense to make Oliver a spoiler candidate for the Democrats.
Harlos would then move to put the fundraiser on hold until the Judicial Committee reaches a verdict, with McArdle quickly blocking the motion, stating that Harlos was "dilatory and out of order." Harlos responded saying that her motion wasn't dilatory, since it would only hold the fundraiser's approval if the vote passes, to which McArdle again called Harlos as "dilatory and unprofessional" and asked her to rescind her judicial case and her motion to delay. On July 20 the LNC executive met for a vote on blocking the fundraiser with the Executive Committee voted 6 in favor and 11 against, meaning that the joint fundraiser would go through, although, due to the speedy nature of the called vote, many of the voting members did not read the contents of the proposed fundraiser. Later that day, RFK Jr. announced on twitter that his campaign has signed the joint fundraiser, and that it was now in effect. On July 27, Harlos sued the Colorado affiliate, and their chairwoman Hannah Goodman, for their support of RFK Jr. in response McArdle called an emergency session of the Executive Committee on July 30. This meeting opened with McArdle attempting to transition the meeting to an executive session, so that McArdle would have more power over votes, in a 3-3 tie this motion failed. McArdle began by arguing that the LNC cannot indemnify Harlos due to her lawsuit and for acting outside "your bylaws-mandated duties" due to being in conflict with the LNC as such she should be removed from her position. In response Harlos stated she was not in conflict with the LNC, only the Colorado affiliate, and as such the executive committee had no means to remove her and as such no motion to remove was put forward.
On July 31 Harlos' appeal to the judicial committee took place reviewing if McArdle violated the aforementioned by-laws. During which committee chairman, Blay Tarnoff, ruled that article 2 was "a preparation, not a strict bylaw", however, also stated that the joint fundraiser was improper and asked why the LNC rushed to vote through a motion they had never seen, to which McArdle responded "We were in a hurry." Tarnoff closed the meeting by stating that the LNC should withdraw from the agreement.
On October 1 Harlos filed a lawsuit seeking to remove McArdle from office for alleged misconduct in her duties as Chair, including inviting another political party's presidential candidate to hold a rally at the Libertarian Party's own presidential nominating convention, supporting candidates of a competing party, using party resources for non-party events without internal accounting, and self-dealing.
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| Angela McArdle | 692 | 69.6 |
| Steve Dasbach | 151 | 15.2 |
| Tony D'Orazio | 103 | 10.4 |
| NOTA | 47 | 4.7 |
| Adam Kokesh (write-in) | 1 | nil |
| Tiffany Deleon (write-in) | 1 | nil |
| Totals | 995 | 100% |
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