An online Zogby poll of 2,102 likely voters nationwide (+/- 2.2%) shows Libertarian Bob Barr at 3.7% in the presidential race, with independent Ralph Nader at 1.0% and Green Cynthia McKinney at 0.6%. Barack Obama is at 46.4% to John McCain’s 43.4%. The five-way survey did not include Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin or other third-party candidates.
“only 100K signed up for the C4L, so I think that represents the pool of Paul voters who may be swayed by his endorsement (or for other reasons) to support Baldwin. The rest have returned to mainstream Republican ranks. ”
Absolutely correct, unfortunately.
Ron Paul’s newsletters and personal greed killed his own rEVOLution.
Then he self destructed with his self promoting press conference and foolish endorsement of a theocrat.
A 40,000 Ron Paul swing vote is optimistic.
The rest have returned to mainstream Republican ranks.
Maybe some — like maybe 10-15%? But hardly “the rest”.
Fr0m what I’ve observed, I’d wager they’ve divided amongst the LP, Nader, Obama (yes, Obama), and — probably the largest segment — “not voting/apathy”/”write in Ron Paul even though it won’t count” camps.
Alexa rankings are less than perfect.
I own several websites, with programs to measure hits.
According to my programs, site A registers many more hits than Site B. And considering the sites, this makes sense.
But Alexa once reported that Site B was way ahead. That’s dead wrong.
Alexa usually has Site A ahead, but that it was so wrong once, makes me doubt its accuracy.
I’d say Alexa may gave a valid rough estimate. But it’s by no means perfect.
“I have heard Webster Tarpley accuse Zogby of having strong CIA connections, although I haven’t looked into these allegations yet. CIA influence would explain why Zogby favors Barr and Obama so constistently.”
*face-palms*
Not even remotely true. Disgustingly false, in fact.
I suspect only 40-45,000 Ron Paul supporters will vote Baldwin who havent in previous elections. So, he’s looking at roughly 200k.
Baldwin should be included in the poll, but don’t expect there is much latent support for him. The CP historically polls 100-200K. True, Ron Paul got more than 1M votes in the primaries, but only 100K signed up for the C4L, so I think that represents the pool of Paul voters who may be swayed by his endorsement (or for other reasons) to support Baldwin. The rest have returned to mainstream Republican ranks. If 50% of these self-identified Paul supporters vote Baldwin, an incredibly high percentage, Baldwin would register about 0.2% of the vote.
Yes, but are Alexa rankings worth much?
IPR is also rated higher than barr2008.com
I was hoping to post the graph in the comments, but it went wrong for some reason.
Hugh
Unapproved your next to last comment because you has some code that was messing up the comment box.
The text was that Barr2008.com is now 6th among presidential websites in Alexa ratings, which is what your link in the other comment (still above) points to.
If there was anything else in there, please post again without the code.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/limewire.com?site0=votenader.org&site1=bobbarr2008.com&site2=baldwin08.com&site3=votetruth08.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=470&c=1&u%5B%5D=votenader.org&u%5B%5D=bobbarr2008.com&u%5B%5D=baldwin08.com&u%5B%5D=votetruth08.com&x=2008-09-29T02%3A09%3A37.000Z&check=www.alexa.com&signature=Sumin0NOrRfx51bHM5AZBtLdJyk%3D&range=1m&size=Large
Zogby doesn’t poll Baldwin, but it does Nader and McKinney. That skews the results.
Zogby has also leaned heavily toward Obama in primary polls against Clinton and general election polls against McCain.
Zogby’s poll just before the New Hampshire primary was cited as an indication that Clinton stole the election. However, Zogby has consistently favored Obama a few points over almost every competing polling institution. (This does not mean that the NH vote wasn’t rigged, as there is much other evidence supporting that case.)
I have heard Webster Tarpley accuse Zogby of having strong CIA connections, although I haven’t looked into these allegations yet. CIA influence would explain why Zogby favors Barr and Obama so constistently.
Z-polls are historically INACCURATE on just about every thing. Just one more thing to get the hopes of Non Republicans and Non Dems up high enough to dash on election day.
The pol is a scientific sampling, not an internut anyone may enter poll. However, it is a radical new method, and like many radical new methods it may not work perfectly ever.
The Zogby method is to invite people to enter, and ask them a bunch of questions, so they can be fit accurately into a small demographic group, e.g., left- handed multimillionaire revolutionary socialists. [you actually do better than this if you are clever]. The leanings of each group are weighted by the general population. For example, if your sample included 500 Asian-American Democrats, you weight them as being (iirc) 2.5% of the poll population, not matter whether they are 2.5% 25%, or .00025% of the people in your poll.
However, you have to wonder if your sample of left- handed multimillionaire revolutionary socialists is typical of the entire population of left- handed multimillionaire revolutionary socialists, or if it is overweighted with Hilton ’08 voters.
There is no way in hell that Barr will get 3.7% of the vote in November, let alone beat Nader.
Oops. WinstonSmith and Gene Trosper, you are both right. The actual wording of the Barr questions is: “Unscientifically speaking, if someone were to pay you $500 to vote for the Constitutional Hero, Bob Barr, would you do so?”
I think he was joking. 🙂
Sorry, sarcasm is definitely hard to tell over the internet.
Since the poll is ONLINE and not a supposed “scientific sampling”, I’m sure the reason Barr’s numbers are so high is because of that.
I think he was joking. 🙂
In the Zogby polls, the reason Nader does so poorly and Barr does so well (relative to all the other polls) is the wording. People being polled are asked, “Would you vote for the kooky spoiler Ralph Nader?†Only about 1-2% say yes. Then they are asked, “If you were paid $500, would you vote for Barr?†Many more people say yes when the question is worded that way, as you might expect.
I guarantee this isn’t happening. Zogby is a nationally recognized polling company and to think they would ask questions in that form is laughable.
I’d like to see some evidence for such claims.
Yes, the Zogby poll is always skewed favorably toward Barr and unfavorably toward Nader. You can compare several poll results by looking at the list below the chart here:
http://www.pollster.com/polls/us/08-us-pres-ge-mvoand3s.php
I’ve wondered about this for some time, but recently got to the bottom of it. One very important variable that affects poll results is the way the poll questions are worded. Actually, the Nader website also posted something about this recently. They noted that in a poll where candidates were first asked to choose between Obama and McCain and then only asked about third party or independent candidates if they balked on McCain and Obama, Nader got only 1 or 2%. However in the most recent NBC/WSJ poll (which hasn’t yet made it into the results of the chart linked above), when people were asked the question with Barr, Nader, McKinney included and with the wording impartial, 5% said they would vote for Nader.
In the Zogby polls, the reason Nader does so poorly and Barr does so well (relative to all the other polls) is the wording. People being polled are asked, “Would you vote for the kooky spoiler Ralph Nader?” Only about 1-2% say yes. Then they are asked, “If you were paid $500, would you vote for Barr?” Many more people say yes when the question is worded that way, as you might expect.
Is it just that Barr just does this well on online polls that ain’t got Baldwin on, or do other big-name pollsters do online polls too?
I would be kind of surprised if Barr or Nader actually topped 1% of the vote on election day… unless it doesn’t look close by then.
But I would expect Nader to slightly outpoll Barr. And I still feel like they both might top 1 million votes. Which would be an impressive feat by itself… something that I don’t think has happened since 1948.
I’ve never understood how numbers fluctuate so much depending on which poll you look at.
If Barr got close to 4% that would be big. I don’t think he’ll beat Nader though.
“I wonder if Barr gets a slight boost in the Zogby poll as a second choice for Baldwin-leaning Ron Paul supporters.”
Baldwin’s almost never on any poll, so that doesn’t explain why Barr gets higher numbers just with Zogby.
“This would be a rather strong showing for third parties.”
Indeed, too strong. Polls overestimate third-party support.
Based on the total number of votes cast in 2004 if the Zogby polling numbers are accurate
Bob Barr would receive 4,523,899.461 votes
Nader 1,222,675.53 votes
McKinney 733,605 votes
This would be a rather strong showing for third parties. Barr would beat the best LP showing by a multiple of four, Nader would more then double his ’04 total and McKinney would get almost seven times the GP ’04 total. Then again this is only a poll.
I wonder if Barr gets a slight boost in the Zogby poll as a second choice for Baldwin-leaning Ron Paul supporters.
If Nader wasn’t topping or matching Barr in every other poll, I wouldn’t blink.
But every Zogby poll seems skewed somehow to Barr.
Zogby has a pretty good track record w/ major parties, I don’t know about third parties.
Nader will easily have more votes than Barr in November.
Has anyone ever noticed that Barr only and always tops Nader in Zogby polls?