Candidate Clayton Cleveland: 'Vote For Someone You Agree With'

CHICAGO HEIGHTS, IL — The general election is just around the corner and many candidates are preparing for the final stretch on Nov. 3. Clayton Cleveland is one of those candidates that are running and hoping to become elected this November.

Cleveland is running for the Illinois House of Representatives in the 80th District, in the Libertarian Party. The party is the largest 3rd Party in the country and represents about five percent of the population, according to Cleveland.

"The reason I decided to run was when my wife and I were looking for a reason to stay in Illinois," Cleveland said. "Our families are here and it has become unaffordable to live in Illinois. Huge amounts of taxes are driving people out. We've consistently been losing population over the past decade. So my purpose of running since the beginning has been to make sure that it becomes a more affordable place to live."

Cleveland is running against Democrat Anthony DeLuca, who has been in office since March 2009.

"I am running against a candidate that was appointed over a decade ago, and he's never run against another candidate, so this is the first time that, people in our district will have the option to choose a representative," Cleveland said. "I want to help people stay in Illinois and give them a choice this election."

Cleveland said the Libertarian Party is often overlooked in elections and that many people are unfamiliar or unaware of the party.

"A lot of people ask is 'what is the Libertarian party?' They are familiar with the Republicans and the Democrats, but little do they know we are the largest third party out there," Cleveland said. "The view of the libertarian party is that people should be able to live their Liberty. All Americans should be able to freely live their lives and pursue their interests, to follow their dreams— as long as they're not harming another person— they should be free to do this."

Cleveland said that if people try to be more open-minded and consider other parties aside from the democratic and republican parties, they would stop saying "I'm going to vote for the lesser of two evils."

"Why are these are only two options? If we keep pushing that as our only two options, we are never going to get over that hurdle where there's a base of divide. It's going to continue to escalate," Cleveland said. "There are other ideas out there that you're going to have to fit in a specific box of representing this party or that party, that we need to start voting with principals instead of voting with a party. Vote for a candidate because you agree with them, not because they belong to your team."

For more information on Cleveland's campaign, visit his Facebook Page.