Can Ron Paul win? by kaneman

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Can Ron Paul win?

POSTED BY: KANEMAN
UPDATED: Thursday, November 15, 2007 17:34
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Thursday, November 15, 2007 5:07 PM

Media polls employ different methods, but they all report the responses of "likely voters." I am no expert, but there is a very thorough analysis of polling methodology and it seems that the likely voters in the CNN poll may just be those that voted in the last primary (6.6% of registered Republicans). That was a GOP re-election year, so for this calculation, I'll use a voter turnout based on the 1996 election: 8.2%. (I couldn't find an overall turnout for '98 or '00.)

So, now that I have the numbers, there are just a couple more assumptions, which, I think, are conservative but are still somewhat arbitrary.

The CNN poll is a real pulse of registered Republican sentiment. What goes for the 6.6% "likely voters" goes for all registered Republicans.
Ron Paul's supporters are more motivated than the other candidates and will vote in proportionately higher numbers. I assume that 50% of Ron Paul supporters will vote in the Republican primary. That is, 8.2% of Giuliani's supporters will vote. 8.2% of Romney's supporters will vote. Etc..., but 50% of Paul's supporters will vote.
And the winner is...

In this calculation, the assumption that Paul supporters turn out in proportionally greater numbers means that the total number of voters increases slightly, from 8.2% to 10.7%, while Paul's share of the votes increases disproportionately, from 5% to 23%. Also, since the extra 2.1% turnout will exclusively vote for Ron Paul, the other candidate's take will decrease, i.e. Giuliani goes from 28% in the media poll to 21% in my theoretical primary.

`
media poll
additional Paul supporters
total
`

# voters
82,000
20,900
107,000
(per 1,000,000)

% turnout
8.2%
2.1%
10.7%
`

% turnout for Paul: 50% % turnout for others: 8.2%

`
media poll %
poll votes per million
# supporters per million
est. votes per million
est. final vote %

Giuliani
28%
22,960
280,000
22,960
21%

Thompson
19%
15,580
190,000
15,580
15%

McCain
16%
13,120
160,000
13,120
12%

Romney
11%
9,020
110,000
9,020
8%

Huckabee
10%
8,200
100,000
8,200
8%

Paul
5%
4,100
50,000
25,000
23%

Hunter
4%
3,280
40,000
3,280
3%

Tancredo
3%
2,460
30,000
2,460
2%

No opinion
5%
4,100
50,000
4,100
4%

Total
100%
82,000
1,000,000
107,000
100%

November 9, 2007

Kathryn Muratore [send her mail] has a PhD in biology from UC Berkeley and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

Is this possible?

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Thursday, November 15, 2007 5:34 PM

SERGEANTX

It still seems unlikely. But I've been repeatedly surprised at the response to Ron Paul. Even if he could get through to voters, despite the stacked deck of the Republicrat political system, I'm not sure they'd be ready for his message.

He already has the early-adopters, the relative density of independent thinkers on the internet has given him fertile ground for support. But those folks are less common in the 'real' world even when he can get the message out there.

They do seem to be more common than I had previously hoped, however, and thus hope rears its ugly head...

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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