Saturday, April 11, 2015

Political Analyst: Rand Paul Is Losing His Father’s Base



Harry Enten, a senior political writer and analyst for the very sophisticated data analyst web site, FiveThirtyEight, writes:
Paul is polling at a little less than 9 percent in Iowa and nearly 11 percent in New Hampshire. That’s far closer to the percentage of the vote earned by Paul Sr. in both states during his 2008 bid for the presidency, which was far less relevant than his 2012 run.

In fact, Paul is losing support across the board. While he was initially able to outpace his father’s 2012 success, his national numbers have been dropping over the last year....
There really isn’t good public data on the views of libertarian Republican voters, but interviews and internal polls suggest that Paul’s evolution on foreign policy has been too successful in separating him from his father, and has eroded his libertarian credentials....
To get to 25 percent in the two early states, Paul can’t afford many libertarian defections in either. A recent internal Liberty Iowa poll showed that Paul was the choice of about two-thirds of Ron Paul’s Iowa convention delegates. That may seem like a lot, but if Paul wins only 70 percent of his father’s backers that puts him at 15 percent of the vote in Iowa. He’d need to build on his dad’s support by 10 percentage points from one of the GOP’s other wings.

Yet, for all his shifting, Paul hasn’t seen a major payoff with the foreign policy hawks in his party. While there doesn’t seem to be as much visible hatred for Paul as there is for, say, Ted Cruz among his fellow senators, Paul is one of the few candidates who is attracting opponents to jump into the presidential race just to stop him. Lindsey Graham — and potentially John Bolton — might waste half a year or more of their lives campaigning in large part because they disagree with Paul on foreign policy.

1 comment:

  1. You can't be both pro and anti imperialism simultaneously.

    ReplyDelete