When Will Ron Pauls numbers in Scientific polls rise?

[STA654]

Title says it all.

Will they ever rise above 5%? 10%?

[Mister Grieves]

Only when he pulls a "shocking victory" in one of the early primaries. They'll have to start bringing his numbers up to try and maintain a false image of validity to their worthless polls.

[RedStripe]

Title says it all.

Will they ever rise above 5%? 10%?

I hope 5% by the end of October.

[foofighter20x]

It won't be until after the primaries since the pollsters exclude whoever they deem not to be "primary voters" or "likely primary voters."

[Eli]

More important is the meetup group numbers. If we're gaining about 500/day inside two months we can have over 60-70k. If we hold strong and keep drawing more membership by primaries we can have over a 100k members and over a thousand groups. Thats enough man power to swing any caucus. Before each primary we can quickly organize and swarm the state with support.

[Cowlesy]

When all of us cellphone based folks install landlines and reverse the time-space continuum to get ourselves denoted as having a landline number and being a likely Republican voter.

[Mister Grieves]

Before each primary we can quickly organize and swarm the state with support.

I believe all the juggling going on with the primaries is being done in an attempt to thwart this. This is certain to backfire tho, as your casual voter will be more confused by it than many of Ron Paul's supporters who react to information almost instantly.

[DeadheadForPaul]

Many people are still undecided and the average American does not even know who is running outside of Hillary, Obama, Giuliani, Romney, and McCain. I know people who did not even know that Richardson and Edwards are running and both are polling in the teens and 20's.

When things start to heat up in October, I expect us to grow. Remember, we appeal to peopel who are not looking for the average politician so many of these people probably have not even thought about the Presidential race

Additionally, I expect that we will snag some of Tancredo's people when he drops out soon

[quickmike]

I think alot of you are assuming that the mainstream media will give him airtime. Honestly, I dont think they ever will, even if he polls in the 10-15% range in national polls.

We all need to start acting like MSM support and reporting on him is never going to happen no matter what if we want a chance. Its up to us to get Ron's name out there to the people who still dont know who he is. If we dont................. we lose because 70%+ of americans have never heard the name Ron Paul and will probably never know he is running.

[skiingff]

I think alot of you are assuming that the mainstream media will give him airtime. Honestly, I dont think they ever will, even if he polls in the 10-15% range in national polls.

We all need to start acting like MSM support and reporting on him is never going to happen no matter what if we want a chance. Its up to us to get Ron's name out there to the people who still dont know who he is. If we dont................. we lose because 70%+ of americans have never heard the name Ron Paul and will probably never know he is running.

Exactly. Mass media (TV ads) should do the trick.

[bbachtung]

Well, he just went from 0% to 3% in Iowa, so something's shaking. He, Willard, and Huckabee were the only gainers in the poll.

[LibertyEagle]

Exactly. Mass media (TV ads) should do the trick.

That will certainly help. But, why is it that only a few ever talk about going out the front door and handing out literature at events? You know, concerts, rodeos, whatever.... Also, going door-to-door.

We've got the internet down pat, but honestly, I don't see how we stand a prayer, unless more of us are willing to get out of our comfort zones and start putting literature in people's hands. The vast majority of people don't even know WHO HE IS, much less his stances on the issues! Signs are great, but they alone won't get it done.

Think of it this way, even mainstream news is talking about the possibility of Martial Law on the horizon. Bush is moving forward with his NA Union and the NAFTA Superhighway. Our dollar is in the very real danger of crashing. What do you think we're going to be up against if Congressman Paul DOES NOT win? We all stand the very distinct possibility that we will be forced to step out of our comfort zones, then. Wouldn't you rather do it now, before we have tanks in the streets, when we really have a prayer of turning this around? When all it would take is handing out campaign literature?

Just trying to motivate a little bit. :D :p

Let me ask you this.... Do you think the Slim Jims are adequate to hand out, or do you think we need to hand out additional things? Maybe develop something else, or a few of his speeches/articles that highlight his positions? If so, maybe we should do that and put together some packets. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out good materials for getting the word out to so very many people who are either not on the internet, don't have high-speed access, or simply won't take the time. Ideas?

[Nash]

I think alot of you are assuming that the mainstream media will give him airtime. Honestly, I dont think they ever will, even if he polls in the 10-15% range in national polls.

We all need to start acting like MSM support and reporting on him is never going to happen no matter what if we want a chance. Its up to us to get Ron's name out there to the people who still dont know who he is. If we dont................. we lose because 70%+ of americans have never heard the name Ron Paul and will probably never know he is running.

Buchanan was polling at 6% nationally prior to winning New Hampshire in 1996. He promptly shot up to 21% the next day.

He got TONS of exposure following his win in the state. The ensuing smear campaign did him in.

The MSM is not going to give Ron Paul any exposure (good, bad or otherwise) until he wins a primary. That is why New Hampshire is absolutely crucial for the campaign. He MUST win there to have a chance. If he cannot win in New Hampshire then he cannot win anywhere else.

Of course there is a phase 2 following a win in New Hampshire. We know this because of the Buchanan and Dean campaigns that went to pieces following a victory there, but it's the first major step towards the presidency.

After Paul wins New Hampshire the smear campaign will ensue and that is going to the the most critical part of the grassroots campaign leading up to Super Tuesday.

Prepare the response ads now, because the attacks are inevitable.

[stevedasbach]

Ron Paul IS rising in the polls. However, without daily MSM coverage and/or national TV advertising, it is a slow process.

I've been tracking Paul's national poll numbers via pollster.com since before the 1st debates. He' gone from 0.4% to 2.0% over that time.

Whatever he is polling at the time, he will get a much higher percentage of actual votes. All of those people the polls miss will finally be included, and you know Paul supporters will turn out at more than the usual 10-20%. Can you say "upset" and "beating expectations"?

[LibertyEagle]

Steve,
Most people still don't know about him. It's not going to change unless WE do something about it.

Please, let's not wait until it's too late.

[quickmike]

Buchanan was polling at 6% nationally prior to winning New Hampshire in 1996. He promptly shot up to 21% the next day.

He got TONS of exposure following his win in the state. The ensuing smear campaign did him in.

The MSM is not going to give Ron Paul any exposure (good, bad or otherwise) until he wins a primary. That is why New Hampshire is absolutely crucial for the campaign. He MUST win there to have a chance. If he cannot win in New Hampshire then he cannot win anywhere else.

Of course there is a phase 2 following a win in New Hampshire. We know this because of the Buchanan and Dean campaigns that went to pieces following a victory there, but it's the first major step towards the presidency.

After Paul wins New Hampshire the smear campaign will ensue and that is going to the the most critical part of the grassroots campaign leading up to Super Tuesday.

Prepare the response ads now, because the attacks are inevitable.

Difference is, Buchanan already had full name recognition. If you asked someone who Pat Buchanan is back in 96, just about everyone could tell you who he was. Thats not the case with Ron Paul. For every 50 flyers I give out doing door to door, about 7 or 8 people know who he is. Thats not good enough. Like Liberty said, if we dont ALL do some door to door, were screwd for sure. I guarantee it. Ill bet anyone here 500 bucks right now.

Most people are too scared to go door to door, thats the problem.

[brumans]

When all of us cellphone based folks install landlines and reverse the time-space continuum to get ourselves denoted as having a landline number and being a likely Republican voter.

If we don't capture the vote of the people with landline phones, we won't win anyway.

But Ron Pauls campaign is growing DAILY, mostly because of grassroots supports and word-of-mouth! Keep the momentum going. As Ron Paul said, "We're on the upslope" -- and the more we get the word out the higher we will climb up that slope. People are attracted to his message, we just need to initiate that attraction!

[Harry96]

Buchanan was polling at 6% nationally prior to winning New Hampshire in 1996. He promptly shot up to 21% the next day.

He got TONS of exposure following his win in the state. The ensuing smear campaign did him in.

The MSM is not going to give Ron Paul any exposure (good, bad or otherwise) until he wins a primary. That is why New Hampshire is absolutely crucial for the campaign. He MUST win there to have a chance. If he cannot win in New Hampshire then he cannot win anywhere else.

Of course there is a phase 2 following a win in New Hampshire. We know this because of the Buchanan and Dean campaigns that went to pieces following a victory there, but it's the first major step towards the presidency.

After Paul wins New Hampshire the smear campaign will ensue and that is going to the the most critical part of the grassroots campaign leading up to Super Tuesday.

Prepare the response ads now, because the attacks are inevitable.


I hadn't considered this before, but this means the establishment front-loading the primaries could backfire: If Ron Paul wins NH, he won't have as much time to build momentum, but the MSM won't have as much time to tear him down either.

[quickmike]

If we don't capture the vote of the people with landline phones, we won't win anyway.

But Ron Pauls campaign is growing DAILY, mostly because of grassroots supports and word-of-mouth! Keep the momentum going. As Ron Paul said, "We're on the upslope" -- and the more we get the word out the higher we will climb up that slope. People are attracted to his message, we just need to initiate that attraction!

Problem is you cant initiate attraction without physically going up to someone, handing them a flyer and giving them a good explanation of what Ron Paul stands for. Do you think enought RP supporters are doing this? I dont.

I see people putting up signs, which is ok I guess.......... gets a lot of people to see his name, but thats about it. Does nothing at all to get that person to vote for him, especially the older people who tend to vote in large numbers, but who dont have internet access to go Google Ron's name when they see that nice 4'x9' banner hanging on the overpass. Instead, they just say "hmmmm, Ron Paul president 2008....... I wonder who he is?............. anyway, back to the Hannity show.

[Jennifer Reynolds]

///

[Zydeco]

There's nothing scientific about "scientific polls."

Polling is a business that's being replaced by the internet, so they came up with terming their polls "scientific" so people will still think there's value in calling 400 people on a landline in the evening to ask their opinion over the phone.

Paul's support for the primaries is going to be serious. It's a perfect screen for our candidate, weighing strongly how deeply a voter cares about the candidate/message. And as everyone knows, we care :D

[kickzman]

Only when he pulls a "shocking victory" in one of the early primaries. They'll have to start bringing his numbers up to try and maintain a false image of validity to their worthless polls.

Couldn't agree more, these straw polls are evidence that the Polls are BS!! And a gimmick used to steer ppls voting habits.:mad:

[jj111]

More important is the meetup group numbers. If we're gaining about 500/day inside two months we can have over 60-70k. If we hold strong and keep drawing more membership by primaries we can have over a 100k members and over a thousand groups. Thats enough man power to swing any caucus. Before each primary we can quickly organize and swarm the state with support.

Current rate of growth about 10,000 per month.
The majority in most groups do not seem to be visibly active in most group activities.

[wecandoit]

I will agree with what has already been said, these "scientific" polls will not reflect the true support Paul has until it is absolutely forced upon them by his performance in the primaries.

These phony polls have and will continue to be artifically low. I can't understand why they are even posted here, and we are supposed to feel good about an increase from 2% to 3%. We should have blinders on when it comes to these polls, and just focus on real votes.

[paulitics]

These polls serve to discourage us and potential voters. No, they aren't accurate. By doing well in these straw polls we can force some local coverage and mainstrream coverage. And I know the idea gets shot down, but I believe we are all missing the boat by not having a talk show radio strategy. There are millions of fence sitters that listen, many who can be pursuaded.

[inibo]

Problem is you cant initiate attraction without physically going up to someone, handing them a flier and giving them a good explanation of what Ron Paul stands for. Do you think enough RP supporters are doing this? I don't.


I wear my button everywhere I go and I always have slim-jims in my back pocket to answer the inevitable "who is Ron Paul?" but you are right about going to people and not waiting for them to notice me. I am not a door-to-door kind of guy, but, by golly I will give it a try this weekend. My very real trepidation is I live in a very mixed neighborhood. Many Latino and Asian immigrants. My gut tells me that among those who are legal there is almost as much objection to illegals as among natives. I wonder, though, do I have the stomach to test that supposition?

I'll report my experience next week.

[speciallyblend]

half of america doesnt vote,so all we have to do is get the 20 percent of the other 50 percent that does vote,now doesnt that sound better;) then 70 percent:) sarcasm but true in a sense;)

[Paul4Prez]

We should see a continued gradual increase in his poll numbers as we work to get his name out there, and as more people tune in to the presidential race (which historically begins getting noticed on September 1st.)

As more people start to go online to look at the candidates, they will be shocked to see how popular Ron Paul is. The problem is that the mainstream media is still not treating him as a top tier candidate.

How do we get them to do so? Only with third quarter fundraising totals that blow the doors off the second tier -- Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo, Hunter, and McCain. So donate as much as you can by September 30th.

Barring that, or some big publicity generating events, Ron Paul's numbers won't shoot up until he starts TV advertising in the early primary states, then post unexpectedly high vote totals there.

There will only be a few weeks in January for all of this to happen, before 20 states have primaries on February 5th.....

[Jon S]

i think the legals would hate illegals even more than natural born citizens hate illegals. legals had to work to get their citizenship while politicians are pushing for a free pass to anyone who crosses our southern borders. i think legals probably are more disgusted by it than we are.

[jpa]

if we don't get within 5-10% of the leader in the primary state landline polls, we are toast. We can only get 5-10% boost from non-landline or non-republicans at most. Honestly, how many cell phone only or non-republicans can we depend on on primary day?

[austin356]

Someone pointed to un-mainstream-published Gallop Poll data showing Paul has 9% support among "Independents". (within a week or so)

Hypothetically if every single one of those 9% were able, willing, and do vote in the primary (usually around 20% of registered voters; Divided by 2 for Dems), in addition to the 3% Republican support all showing up at a rate of 100% we would win hands down.

[Syren123]

Maybe when the polls actually become scientific.

[paulitics]

RP may be 2% of GOP, but he is picking up double that in independents. This is not true for any other republican. These polls are inaccurate based on that alone. There are studies done on our demographic, and gop is 25%. This is something we need to understand ourselves first, then we can blog about, , write to the media, etc. In all likelyhood, true support is somewhere between 5 and 10%. This is my best estimate.

[austin356]

Why don't the freakin' indies that support Paul lie to the poller and tell them they are Repubs and voted for Bush?

That would radically change the polling results. With Paul's support tripling or quadrupling instantly.

[paulitics]

Why don't the freakin' indies that support Paul lie to the poller and tell them they are Repubs and voted for Bush?

That would radically change the polling results. With Paul's support tripling or quadrupling instantly.

The indies are not on the map. As far as I know only Gop'ers who are registered republican or republican leaning get called. Most of us don't fit into that category.

[stevedasbach]

Depends on the polling firm. Some use random digit diailing (which can reach anyone with a landline), then use questions to screen. Others call from lists of registered voters.

[ZackM]

We don't know the exact makeup of our supporters. If you go to http://rally.ronpaulplanet.org/stats.php you can see the stats of those who have posted pictures.

Now, you have to understand that this is a self-selected sample so it's incredibly prone to bias (if you don't believe that, check out this digg article http://www.digg.com/2008_us_elections/Survey_Majority_of_Americans_Agree_with_Dennis_Kuc inich - according to this self-selected sample of 60,000 Americans, we're all socialists).

That said, I think the numbers shown from the rally site are probably in the ballpark at this point. About 25% traditional Republican, 30% independent, 20% Libertarian, 12% Democrat...etc...

Now, I don't know the polling methodology for the various national and state polls, but in likelihood they are applying sound statistical practices to predict primary races. Understand, they've been doing these polls for many years and are able to use past data to find the best methodology of replicating the intended population.

What you need to realize is what population they are trying to sample. It's not the general public, it's not people who occasionally vote in primaries - it's essentially consistent primary voters who lean Republican.

I think nationally, about 25-30% of registered voters show up for the primaries (someone correct me if i'm wrong). Only half of those are going to be republican primary voters. That's the "target" population they are trying to quantify. It accounts for about 15% of registered voters. If you aren't in that group, then you aren't part of the target sample population.

BTW, statistically, this is totally legitimate. They have years of primary polling experience that tells them, year after year, this is the group that actually shows up. If there's is a huge error here, completely overlooking Paul support, it's in the target population. In other words, they ARE measuring their INTENDED population correctly - the flaw will be that the "old" target population of previous primaries no longer matches the "current" or "real" population.

IF either party had a candidate who was able to draw significant independent and 3rd party support for the primaries, I don't think they'd know how to account for that.

Until someone (grassroots project maybe?) commissions their own poll to try and figure out these discrepencies and understand these new dynamics, it's really hard to guess what an actual primary vote would look like.

The above is just my opinion based on a couple of stats classes in college...

[Trance Dance Master]

Only when he pulls a "shocking victory" in one of the early primaries. They'll have to start bringing his numbers up to try and maintain a false image of validity to their worthless polls.

The only reason they allowed him the boost to 3% was the 9% he received in the Ames, IA straw poll. In 2003, Lieberman was leading all the Zogby polls but never won a single state in the primary.

[Marshall]

I wear my button everywhere I go and I always have slim-jims in my back pocket to answer the inevitable "who is Ron Paul?" but you are right about going to people and not waiting for them to notice me. I am not a door-to-door kind of guy, but, by golly I will give it a try this weekend. My very real trepidation is I live in a very mixed neighborhood. Many Latino and Asian immigrants. My gut tells me that among those who are legal there is almost as much objection to illegals as among natives. I wonder, though, do I have the stomach to test that supposition?

I'll report my experience next week.


If you want some company I can drive down to Rockville for awhile. Let me know.

[Elwar]

Ron Paul numbers in Scientific polls will rise when the amount of neo-cons start liking the idea of liberty and ending the war.

So don't hold your breath on that one.
The national polls are only showing 'likely voters'. It's a cycle that repeats itself. You only poll those people who voted in the last election as a Republican, those people elected the dumbasses we have in office right now. The poll shows a new set of dumbasses because the same voters from last time will vote again this time. And the media will use those polls as the reference for any news that they provide.

Any dissatisfaction with the current regime cannot make it into the media.

We need to forget about trying to influence the Bygone Media (BM). Those who watch it are sheep who probably won't vote in the primaries anyway. Focus on getting people to the voting booth yourself...that is the key to this race.