Ron Paul Rising (and Winning the Black Vote) in New Hampshire?
David Weigel | October 9, 2007, 11:45am
RealClearPolitics gives us the latest
Insider Advantage poll of New Hampshire with Rep. Ron Paul at his highest-ever support level: Six percent. That puts him in the running for fourth place, only slightly behind eight-percenters Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee. (That's also higher than the 3 percent most polls give him.) The breakdowns:
- Paul scores around 8 percent with 18-29 year olds and 30-44 year olds, but most GOP primary voters are over 45.
- Paul wins the biggest chunk of the black vote, 22.2 percent, topping Mitt Romney's 18.5 percent. One problem: There
aren't very many black New Hampshire Republicans. Only 27 were sampled in this poll, and Paul won six of them. Hey, he gets bragging rights.
- Paul wins 10.4 percent of moderate voters, better than Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee.
That last number's interesting because of the X-Factor in the race: whatever New Hampshire's independents do. They've
largely soured on Republicans, especially John McCain (who wouldn't have won the 2000 primary without them), and two-thirds of them say they'll vote in the Democratic race. If Barack Obama or John Edwards wins Iowa, they probably will keep their word. But if Hillary Clinton wins Iowa and the Democratic race stops being interesting, how many anti-war independents will vote for Paul? I'm not predicting a Paul
win by any means, but it's getting easier to see a New Hampshire primary where the
gap between 1st and 2nd place is smaller than Paul's vote... with the loser having made no effort to steal Paul voters away by talking about his issues.
I talked with
New Hampshire Republicans about the race back in June. (That picture was taken outside the June CNN debate.)
In related (old) news,
Paul won't be at the Republican Jewish Coalition's candidate
forum next week. The first reason given: They only invited the "top" candidates. The second reason given, since they included the never-serious Sam Brownback: Paul votes against aid to Israel.
Kevin Houston | October 9, 2007, 1:44pm | #
As encouraging as this survey is, it still means nothing this far from the primary.
Perhaps, marginally, it means people have heard the name. We don't even really know who was called, or what names were asked (or in what order, etc.)
Check out the pollster.com disclosure project for some insights as to how the telephone surveys are skewed. (on purpose or by accident makes no difference)
The Plain Old Telephone Surveys (POTS) have had a terrible track record in relation to the straw polls. I am not even talking about Ron Paul’s results, and I am not talking about straw polls which are open to every Tom, Dick and state fair attendee.
I am also not talking about cellphone bias, or the fact that Ron Paul’s name is routinely left off of POTS (and then those POTS are averaged with other POTS which artificially depress Ron Paul’s Real Clear Politics poll averages)
In IA, TX, and MI, the polls were limited to GOP members. In TX, it was very limited - not just GOP members, but past GOP state or national delegates. In theory, these straw polls should have had results within the MoE of the POTS.
Let’s see what really happened.
IA - ABC POTS had McCain and Huckabee even at 8% among likely GOP straw poll attendees the week prior to the straw poll. McCain got 1%; Huckabee got 18%. Both results were far outside the margin of error (MoE) for that POTS (4.5%). Romney did well, within the MoE of his POTS numbers, but Giuliani did terribly (well below Tommy Thompson)
TX - Duncan Hunter won the straw poll with 41%. He had been polling in the low single digits (even lower than Ron Paul) in POTS. Again, Giuliani did very poorly in the straw poll with 6%, no where near his commanding 26% in the POTS. Theorhetically, this straw poll should have been closest to the POTS numbers due to the restrictive straw poll criteria. If anything it was the least conforming.
MI - The Mackinac straw poll had the order:Romney 39%, McCain 27%, Paul 11% (106), Giulaini 11% (104), F. Thompson 7%, Huckabee 3%. But the Real Clear Politics POTS average had this order: Romney 26.7%, Giuliani 18.3%, Thompson 14.0%, McCain 13.0%, Huckabee 4.3%, Ron Paul 1%. Of course Romney does well in MI, his father used to be governor. but how did McCain do so well in the straw poll, while doing so poorly in the POTS?
Here then, are 3 straw polls whose attendees were as likely to be GOP primary voters, as any POTS respondants.
Not one of the POTS results is anywhere on the same planet as the straw poll.
Conclusion? The POTS bear little or no relation to actual voting patterns this far from the primary. Plain Old Telephone Surveys are statistically unsound, open your eyes.
I’m not saying Ron Paul is going to win based on this. Ron Paul’s numbers are in the 11-16% for these straw polls. I am saying that Ron Paul’s support level is WAAaay above the 1-4% (or even 6 to 8%) that most POTS place him at.
Hard work is paying off.
Donate, Donate, Donate.
Door-knock, Door-knock, Door-knock.
Lit-drop, Lit-drop, Lit-drop.
Rick Fisk | October 9, 2007, 7:48pm | #
"I never get this line of argument. Can someone point me to poll results showing McRomliompson all losing head-to-head against Hillary but Ron Paul winning?"
How about the poll result that says 70% of the American people want us out of Iraq?
There is only one GOP candidate that didn't vote for the war originally. Who can believe any of the current DNC candidates since they all voted for the war and at every opportunity have continued to support the war (while pretending they were against it)?
People who dismiss the "Ron Paul beats Hillary in the general election" meme, are, I think, doing so because they believe that the entire nation is full of idiots who can't tell the difference.
What you see on television is not reality. Mitt Ronmey and Giuliani and Thompson are, according to the old media, top tier candidates.
Thompson has to beg for applause from the 25 or so people who show up at his events, Mitt Romney is blowing wads of cash to hire supporters to show up at events, McCain's last media-covered event had ONE supporter.
On the other hand, Ron Paul hasn't drawn less than 800 in 3 months. His donations rose by 114% in the past quarter while his competitors' donations, virtually none of which came from individual contributors, have declined.
Not one of the other candidates can outdraw Ron Paul (including most of the democrats) and yet some people need MORE evidence that he's really the front runner. This is absurd.
Kerry was polling at 5% before he won the New Hampshire primary and then immediately afterwards was polling at 5%. Gee. How'd they screw that up so bad?
Maybe the same way they're screwing it up now?
