Is Gary Johnson A Good Alternative To Donald Trump? 10 Facts About The Third-Party Candidate Running As A Libertarian

If Donald Trump's Republican National Convention speech didn't win you over this week, it might be time to take a deeper look at Gary Johnson, the third-party candidate who could steal votes from both the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets in the November general election.

With 13 percent of the polls already in his favor, Johnson joked Thursday that Ted Cruz's call to "vote your conscience" at the Republican convention was a boon for his candidacy.

"He did say to vote for Gary Johnson, didn't he? And that was 'vote your conscience,'" he told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day." "I certainly would uphold the Constitution."

For conservatives looking for an alternative to Trump -- and, let's face it, Bernie Sanders fans, too-- here are 10 facts about the Libertarian candidate for president.

1. Johnson needs 15 percent support in national polls to make the first primetime debate between Democratic Hillary Clinton and Trump in September. He thinks he will get it.

"I think Donald Trump alienates more than half of the Republicans," he said this week.

2. Johnson served two terms as governor of New Mexico. He was a Republican at the time.

3. This is Johnson's second shot at the White House. During his 2012 campaign, he drew only 1 percent of the national vote as the Libertarian presidential candidate.

4. Johnson could take support from Clinton and Trump in November. Five Thirty Eight writes: "Johnson looks especially likely to peel votes from Clinton and Trump because he will probably achieve ballot access in all 50 states, which is unusual for a non-major-party candidate."

5. International Business Times spent some time with Johnson in June. He didn't know how to use Snapchat, so we showed him.

6. He finished 75 triathlons and once climbed Mount Everest with a healing broken leg.

7. He calls himself "the highest-ranking official in the United States to call for the legalization of marijuana."

8. His political views are, no surprise here, libertarian: He wants to raise the retirement age for Social Security, abolish the I.R.S., and scale down the military. As a reminder, libertarian means you support smaller government when it comes to both the economy and policing social issues.

"I was the Republican governor of a very Democratic state. I succeeded because I brought a brand of fiscal conservativism, together with respect for people with different lifestyles," he wrote for Politico this week.

9. His running mate is former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld. Weld the loves Grateful Dead, was a popular lawmaker in his state and once tried to remove anti-abortion language from the 1996 Republican National Convention when he was a member of the GOP, according to the New Yorker.

10. Do you like that Trump is a rich businessman? Well, so is Johnson, albeit on a much smaller scale. In 1999, he sold for $10 million a 1,000-employee construction firm he started his junior year of college.