Ron Paul's Performance in Internet Polls

Ron Paul has been performing well in internet and text-message polls, but he has not been performing so well in phone polls. Internet and text-message polls are non-scientific (the number of people voting in the polls is irrelevant), but I would like to make an attempt at more specific explanations. All seemingly factual statements below are strictly hypothetical and should be taken in context of the explanation. In no particular order:

1) Ron Paul supporters are more likely to be internet users than supporters of the other Republican candidates. His supporters are more likely to seek out news and commentary from alternative internet sites like blogs and are less likely to rely on establishment news like CNN.

2) One conventional explanation is that Ron Paul supporters are more organized. There is an army of supporters who are ready to vote in any and every poll available. As a Ron Paul suppoter, I have not seen such organization, per se. I see polls and links to polls scattered about in random places, whether it be the original source on a news site, comments placed on news articles, or in blogs. I have not seen an exhaustive list of polls in which Ron Paul supporters are asked to vote.

3) Another conventional explanation is that there are one or a handful of Ron Paul supporters voting repeatedly in the same poll. This is certainly possible, but taking proper measures such as IP logging should prevent this. One particular site suggesting this points out that this dishonest tactic does not reflect well upon the Ron Paul campaign, regardless whether it is being done by someone officially associated with the campaign or by some over-zealous Ron Paul supporter.

4) The above possibility and admonition led me to think of the possibility that an over-zealous supporter of some other Republican candidate is stuffing the electronic ballot boxes. One may do this to make the Ron Paul campaign look less than honest. I am not accusing anyone of doing this, and, no, I am not wearing a tin foil hat.

5) I would be surprised if many voters are paying close attention to the primary races this early in the election cycle. Those people voting in internet and text-message polls are those people who are paying attention to the campaign and the debates. They are hearing Ron Paul's message, and they are being pursuaded by it. The attentiveness of participants in phone polling lags that of the participants in internet polling. I read about people who are hearing about Ron Paul for the first time and are registering to vote so that they can cast their first vote for him. As Ron Paul's message reaches a wider audience, his phone polling numbers will rise.

6) Another conventional explanation is that liberal anti-war Democrats are crossing party lines to vote in Republican polls. This does not ring true to me. Ron Paul is very clear that he wants to eliminate the Department of Education, eliminate federal welfare programs, eliminate Social Security, and stop forcing states to provide state welfare and free education to immigrants. I cannot see a supporter of the welfare state voting for Ron Paul because the they agree with him on the sole issue of curbing the warfare state.

7) Ron Paul is garnering all of the anti-war vote in the Republican Party, while the pro-war vote is being split between the other nine candidates.

8) Ron Paul supports are more likely to be privacy advocates than supporters of other candidates. They do not answer their phone or do not have a phone at all. I have read Gallup's procedures. They call numbers quite randomly, so they do sample unlisted numbers. I do not know about cells phones. They may also just be too busy being productive citizens to sit by their phone all day waiting for a call from Gallup.

9) Many Ron Paul supporters are college students. College students at home or in a dorm rooms do not get sampled. This goes for anyone who is "institutionalized" (in the military, in a hosptial, in prison, etc.) in any way.

Whatever the reason I am enjoying watching various organizations discredit their own polls.