Image: Doctrine Man Facebook page
Originally published at American Third Party Report earlier today:
According to a July 20th, 2016 article by Kristina Wong published at TheHill.com, a new non-scientific poll of active duty military service members, those serving in the military reserves, retired members of the military and former members of the military as well as their family members shows Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson as the preferred candidate of those who wear or have worn the uniform.
A total of 3,556 participants took part in a survey conducted by the Doctrine Man Facebook page; of them, 36.7% supported Johnson, 30.7% supported Donald Trump and 15.1% supported Hillary Clinton. Undecided voters came in at 6.7%, while the remaining 10.8% of the participants either said that they would not vote, would write-in a candidate’s name, or support Green candidate Jill Stein; marginal support also went to Constitution Party candidate Darrell Castle and the “other third party” candidate option. According to The Hill, 95.7% of the participants are registered voters. Angie Drake, one of the originators of the poll,wrote at the Daily Kos that it was conducted from July 13th-19th, 2016 through Google Forms and was heavily advertised on Facebook by Doctrine Man, whose Facebook page stands at over 152,000 “likes.”
Doctrine Man broke down the results of the poll by military demographics:
All Active Duty Military Members:
Gary Johnson – 38.7%, Donald Trump – 30.9%, Hillary Clinton – 14.1%, All other options-16.3%
Family of Active Duty Military Members:
Hillary Clinton – 29.4%, Donald Trump – 27.5%, Gary Johnson – 24.5%, Undecided – 9.8% All other options – 8.8%
Doctrine Man released the breakdown by each military branch:
Army (1,892 participants – 53.2% of all poll participants):
Gary Johnson – 35.3%, Donald Trump – 31.5%, Hillary Clinton – 15.3%, Undecided – 6.7%, All other options – 11.2%
Air Force (1,174 participants – 33% of all poll participants):
Gary Johnson – 39.1%, Donald Trump, – 30%, Hillary Clinton -12.9%, Undecided – 7.1%, All other options – 10.9%
Marines (118 participants – 3.3% of all poll participants):
Gary Johnson – 44.1%, Donald Trump – 27.1%, Hillary Clinton – 12.7%, Undecided – 8.5% All other options – 7.6%
Navy (306 participants – 8.6% of all poll participants):
Donald Trump – 32.4%, Gary Johnson – 31.7%, Hillary Clinton – 22.9%, All other options – 13%
While the poll creators stressed the non-scientific nature of the survey, there is precedent for libertarian presidential candidates attracting substantial support from members of the military community; 1988 Libertarian nominee Ron Paul, during the course of his 2012 presidential campaign, raised more money in donations from service members than any other candidate, including more than the incumbent president and the entire Republican field combined.
Unscientific yeah, but this is still pretty cool!
As Krzysztof notes in the article, Ron Paul also saw strong support from U.S. government military personnel.
Could it be that they have a better understanding than the average voter about the folly of the U.S. government maintaining military bases and troops all over the world and trying to be an international policeman?
I definitely enjoyed reading this. I would ask my friend in the Navy, but we sorta never talk politics. He was a democrat when we were younger and I can only hope that he hasn’t ventured to the dark side. He’s too intelligent to vote Trump!
Scientific polls offer more accurate results than the wishful thinking of Doctrine Man and his fans:
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/election/2016/07/17/military-times-survey-donald-trump-hillary-clinton/87024898/
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