Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

Alabama
New Hampshire

Ron Paul won these two state's straw polls by an absolute landslide, 81% in Alabama and 73% in New Hampshire. I don't really know that much about straw polls, they seem like they're a bit silly, but this seems like big news. Could somebody that knows about straw polls tell me how important this is? Ron Paul supporters seem like they're a lot more gung-ho and dedicated than most, so these results have to be skewed in his favor. That being said, it would take a lot of skewing before you could make the argument that these results aren't a big deal.

As a sub-point, I haven't seen anything in the mainstream media about these results yet. Do the Ron Paul conspiracy theorists have a legitimate point?

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

Paul is up to 3% in the latest Gallup poll too. Clearly a landslide in the making.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

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Paul is up to 3% in the latest Gallup poll too. Clearly a landslide in the making.

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That's partly why I'm asking what I should make of these straw polls, it seems like there is conflicting information. Does this mean that the straw polls are just totally bunk? Does it mean Gallup poles are biased? Maybe it means that nobody is very good at polling. I have no idea, thought somebody might be able to elaborate for me.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

well i know that iowa straw poll used diebold electronic voting machines, I wouldn't be surprised if these two used paper ballots or something.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

Straw polls are largely bunk in terms of judging candidate strength. Notice how Romney won in Iowa but finished a distant 3rd in the telephone polls. This is because the straw polls are much more about how big your organization is and how much effort you are willing to put in. They aren't completely worthless because the media loves to cover the horserace and doing well will get you some press coverage. Witness Huckabee's rise in the polls.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

Yep, Huckabee has shot up to 4% in the latest Gallup poll. His 2nd place in Iowa was well worth the effort. I'd argue that no one is paying attention to politics yet and therefore both straw polls and national polls are worthless at this point. National polls are basically name recognition especially this early in the process. Straw polls are about what you put into it and how much money you can spend to bus people in and vote for you. The straw polls Ron Paul won are very small samples. He was actually in New Hampshire and I'm not sure if any of the other candidates were or not. It'd be pretty sad if they were and got that few people to show up.

So, the national telephone polls don't accurately represent Ron Paul's support because he has a lot of supporters who won't be called, but will change their party affiliation to vote for him the primaries. The straw polls are too unknown and too small to gauge his support as well as we all know that he's not at 70-80% approval among Republicans. But we do see people voting for him who won't be called in the telephone polls in the straw polls. Wait a little while for people to start paying attention to politics and we'll see where Ron Paul is at then.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

A straw poll is typically a vote taken among people who are attending a local party meeting or convention. It is not in any way a sampling of the voters in the county, just a count of the people who happened to show up at the meeting.

It is likely that the voters in these polls consisted of (a) leaders of the county Republican party organization and (b) a bunch of Paul supporters who decided to "crash" the meeting in order to generate some press for their candidate.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

Any time Ron Paul wins anything the poll is rigged. Anytime Paul loses the poll was not rigged. Duh

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

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So, the national telephone polls don't accurately represent Ron Paul's support because he has a lot of supporters who won't be called...

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We've gone over this several times. It's not true, and any polling organization worth it's salt has accounted for them.

Re: Ron Paul Wins Alabama/New Hampshire Straw Polls by Landslide
 

The Illinois Republican Presidential Straw Poll was conducted on electronic voting machines and ran from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Final Results:

Mitt Romney – 40.35%
Fred Thompson – 19.96%
Ron Paul – 18.87%
Rudy Giuliani – 11.61%
John McCain – 4.12%
Mike Huckabee – 3.04%
Sam Brownback – 1.08%
Duncan Hunter - .65%
Tom Tancrado - .33%