What CNN's Polling Last Night Tells Us About Rand Paul's Campaign
He has more appeal to the young, to independents, and to those who worry most about government spending. But not enough appeal in any category.
Rand Paul's appeal to voters seems to decline with age, reveals CNN's entrance polls in Iowa last night.
Paul, who got 4.5 overall in the actual caucus vote, in CNN's entrance poll was pulling 13 percent of 17-29 year olds (making him 4th in that category rather than his overall 5th), and only 2 percent of the 65 and olders, with a steady decline in the age groupings between. He was also 4th among 30-44 year olds, with 9 percent, if this entrance poll is representative.
Other tidbits and revelations: Paul's gender appeal mix seemed even. (Race just isn't relevant in mostly-white Iowa.)
Education level seemed to have little relevance to Paul. He pulled either 4 or 5 percent in CNN's accounting in all education categories.
Paul did slightly better with first-time caucusgoers, with 6 percent of them vs. 4 for repeat customers.
Paul came in 4th among independents in this poll, with 10 percent. (Still way worse than his supporters would have guessed, where his independent appeal was supposed to be a big selling point.)
In the "very conservative" category, Cruz crushed with 44 percent to Paul's 3 percent; Paul did slightly above his own average with 6 percent for "somewhat conservative."
Paul got 7 percent of those who said they were not born-again or evangelical, 4 percent who said they were. (The very worldly and unconvincingly religious Trump was second with 22 percent of the born-againers.)
In the "what's your most important issue?" category questions, the only one where Paul swung much above his 4.5 percent weight was "government spending." He captured 9 percent of them. (And only 1 percent of those who privileged immigration as their top issue.)
For "top candidate quality," Paul swung above weight on "shares my values" with 7 percent. (He even beat Trump's 5 percent on that.)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
At least the liberty vote stayed in the Paul family. Unfortunately, the liberty vote is still less than 5 percent. (The rest of the Ron Paul vote went to Trump, no doubt.)
The Ron Paul vote went to Ted Cruz.
Why would it? Has anyone polled them? Ted Cruz seems like the opposite of Ron Paul to me.
Apparently as we get older, we get more comfortable trading liberty for (supposed) security. Once you start slurping from the SS and Medicare trough, you don’t want to be reminded of the people suffering to provide your largess.
Of course it is. But being a former victim doesn’t justify making new victims.
Now that I think about it, I’m not sure it doesn’t. Imagine a line of people, each picking the same amount of $ from the next one’s pocket. The net effect is of the 1st in line to have stolen that much from the last. All the picking of pockets in between doesn’t magnify the total harm.
Of course in reality the amounts are not equal, but the principle is sound, since $ is fungible. It’s not like any of those people in line had a sentimental attachment to particular bits of currency; they’d be just as happy with any of them. So what’s the harm of keeping the racket going once it’s started, provided it’s not enlarged? & if it is enlarged, it’s only bad to the degree of the enlargement.
Or the chances of a drug bust go down as we get older.
Or both.
Yeah, but it’s not about your own chances of a drug bust…Or at least it shouldn’t be.
If that were true, than only people who are currently serving prison sentences and their immediate family, would care at all about criminal justice reform.
Eventually most people get beaten into submission.
HANDS OFF MY MEDI-WAR!
And get your pot-smoking mexican ass-sex off my lawn!
Serious, non-snarky question: Are you thinking of writing a book about this campaign, Doherty? As a follow up to that other one, I forgot its name.
I am not, but thanks for asking.
Cool, cool, cool. I like that you’re on the Paul beat again, and it made me think back to those golden days of 2011.
“Apparently as we get older, we get more comfortable trading liberty for (supposed) security.”
Probably true, unfortunately. But they forget that there is no floor to how low infringement of liberty can go when it comes to the leaders increasing their power.
When the next Gestapo or KGB or the equivalent starts knocking on doors at midnight looking for YOUR KIND, they won’t give out any passes because you seem to be “too old to make too much trouble.” On the contrary, if you’re young and strong you might get to live a while longer at a work camp, but if you’re old and weak you’ll be first in line for the gas chamber or firing squad.
Alex Jones: Bernie Sanders Will Throw Us In Forced Labor Camps Like Mao Zedong – See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/…..mao-zedong #sthash.zwvaSsaf.dpuf
Can’t have this happen.
Seriously, Bernie is bad enough. Why do wingnuts need to make up lies?
I fully support Bernie throwing you in a forced labor camp until you pay Playa those $100 you owe him.
Quit lying.
I owe Reason $20 and will be mailing a money order to Matt Welch this week when I get to the Post Office to buy one.
Seriously? Money Order? Post Office? ‘This week’?
I thought you had mad money with your financial skills – 5 minutes at your local convenience store will get you a 20 dollar money order instead of waiting in line at the PO. Hell, a phone call will get Western Union to wire the money right from your desk.
I blew all my money on cocaine and strippers.
It’s not sentient. You are literally wasting your time interacting with a biological equivalent of Eliza.
Ugh! It’s not about NOW — it’s the overall trend. The article establishes that in Iowa, the vast majority don’t care about preserving liberties at all. If very few people care, it opens the door to truly frightening things happening down the line as the power of government steadily increases.
Bernie or Trump probably won’t throw anyone into a camp, but if we continue electing TOP MEN who know better than everyone else, we will end up there eventually. You’re the wing nut if you don’t understand that.
I’ts not only old people, it’s old people in IOWA. They really are old.
Well, Rand won 100% of the 60+ vote in my household. But it’s a narrow demographic (as in just me).
I never thought Rand would win, but I vainly hoped he would capture enough attention to make the other candidates at least give lip service to individual liberty or fiscal responsibility. Of all the candidates on either party, he was the only one speaking to either. And the voters made it very apparent they could care less about either.
So Ron Paul is able to generate 21.5% of the Iowa vote 4 years ago, and Rand only 4.5%.
So yeah, they are different candidates at a different time, but maybe there is one important reason. Ron was very strong about his anti-war stance, and fiscal irresponsibility of the military. Rand is less so… He has tempered that message. In fact, Ron was almost “in your face” about those issues, particularly in the debates. Rand is more reserved about it, and even equivocates about it some.
Ron was an outlier in the GOP and was rewarded for it in votes. Rand has stepped that back and was punished for it in votes.
By the way, Brian, as far as the young, Ron took 45% of the youth vote in Iowa, and 47% in New Hampshire. Rand doesn’t have close to that appeal, and I would suggest it’s because he has made an attempt to blend in with the GOP as opposed to his father.
But how much of the vote did Ron Paul get 8 yrs. ago? Or in 1988? 2008 may have been a fluke.
Ron got 10% of the Iowa vote on 2008. So he was building interest there, and Rand even underperform his father at the low end.
The one mitigating factor can be how many ran in the race, as more candidates would take away votes from any one candidate.
11 in 2008, 7 in 2012, and 11 this time around. So not much of activating factor there, although a bit in 2012.
*mitigating factor, not activating.
Donald Trump wasn’t running in 2012.
Rand’s problem is that Ted Cruz is getting all the libertarian voters.
No, he is not. Libertarians have no reason whatsoever to vote for an evangelical warmonger like Cruz. Some, the more racist sort, are voting for Trump. Others have been sucked into the black hole of the LP. Yet others are just apathetic and have decided not to vote at all. All of these people at any rate have betrayed Ron Paul’s legacy.
What this tells me is that Iowans have no idea who Rand Paul even is. It’s like they didn’t even bother watching the debates.
The Liberty Movement is not dead!
libertyordeath.blog.com
In the “what’s your most important issue?” category questions, the only one where Paul swung much above his 4.5 percent weight was “government spending.” He captured 9 percent of them.
In other words, 91 percent of the people who said government spending was their number one issue either didn’t read what the candidates said they would do about government spending, or another issue was really their number one issue.
just before I saw the bank draft 4 $9950 , I didn’t believe that…my… brothers friend had been actualey bringing home money in their spare time on their apple labtop. . there friend brother has been doing this 4 only about and recently cleared the dept on there place and bourt a new Jaguar XJ . linked here
Clik This Link inYour Browser??….
????????? http://www.Jobstribune.com
I’ve made $76,000 so far this year working online and I’m a full time student.I’m using an online business opportunity I heard about and I’ve made such great money.It’s really user friendly and I’m just so happy that I found out about it.
?????? http://www.Wage90.com