Rasmussen finally puts Gary Johnson in presidential poll with Obama and Romney — gets 1%
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Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson and his supporters have been badgering national polling outfits to include his name along with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney when the polling groups take their surveys of potential US voters.
This week, Rasmussen Reports finally did and on Saturday (Aug. 25), the results showed Johnson getting just one percent, compared to 48 percent for Romney, 48 percent for Obama and 3 percent undecided.
Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for president
The poll by Rasmussen was made of 1,000 likely voters across the country via telephone and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
Capitol Report New Mexico contacted the Johnson campaign for reaction to the Rasmussen poll Saturday afternoon. As soon as we hear back, we’ll post their comments. Update: In an e-mail, Joe Hunter of the Johnson campaign wrote, “Simply being included in the survey is more important than the number. Just seeing Gov. Johnson in the poll will invite voters to learn more about him — and that is our objective. It cannot be overlooked that we have not yet aired a single ad. Being part of the conversation is the first step, and an important one.”
The former two-term governor of New Mexico has polled in the 6-13 percent range in states such as New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado and Arizona but national pollsters have generally excluded his name when asking about Obama and Romney.
Johnson’s longshot campaign is pinning its hopes on getting Johnson’s preference numbers up to the 15 percent range, which would qualify him for appearances at the upcoming presidential debates with Obama and Romney. A third-party candidate hasn’t been able to do that since 1992 when Ross Perot appeared onstage with George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
“He’s dreaming,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center For Politics and omnipresent figure on cable TV, told a reporter with Fox News last week. “The debate committee is run by the two [major] parties. They had to let in Perot because at one point he had 40 percent of the vote.”
Another strategy for Johnson is to lure Ron Paul supporters, unhappy that the libertarian Republican congressman from Texas lost out to Romney in the GOP primaries. Johnson is in Tampa this weekend and is scheduled to speak at “P.A.U.L. Festival,” a gathering of Paul supporters, and will try to get that vocal subgroup of Republicans to back him once Romney is officially selected as the GOP nominee at the Republican National Convention next week.
“Having met lots of Ron Paul supporters, especially young groups, … tea party groups, there’s a lot of receptiveness to Gary Johnson,” Libertarian Party executive director Carla Howell told a reporter from Maine. “They don’t like Mitt Romney. They don’t want that choice. They don’t want to just drop out and be inactive. They see Gary Johnson as offering a lot of the same things as Ron Paul.”
But Johnson’s biggest hurdle, it seems, is that a large number of Americans simply don’t know who he is.
Saturday’s Rasmussen poll reported 63 percent of those surveyed don’t know enough about Johnson to have an opinion about him and only one out of 10 have a strong opinion about him.
Overall, 16 percent had a favorable opinion of Johnson and 20 percent had an unfavorable opinion.
Among Republicans surveyed, 2 percent had a “very favorable” opinion of Johnson while 9 percent had a “very unfavorable” opinion. Among Democrats, the numbers were 1 percent “very favorable” and 12 percent “very unfavorable.”
For you polling nerds, the survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted on August 22-23 and the exact wording of the questions was:
1* If the Presidential Election were held today, would you vote for Republican Mitt Romney, Democrat Barack Obama or Libertarian Gary Johnson?
2* Do you have a very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable or very unfavorable impression of Gary Johnson?
Update 8/26: Here’s Johnson’s speech at the P.A.U.L. Festival in Tampa on Saturday. He received a warm reception from the Ron Paul fans. We’ll see if that translates into any of those Paul backers actively going out and voting for Johnson.
The speech runs a little more than 13 minutes:
Posted under Capitol Report.
Tags: Capitol Report New Mexico, Carla Howell, Gary Johnson, Larry Sabato, Libertarian Party, P.A.U.L. Festival, Rasmussen Reports, Ron Paul, Washington Times/JZ Analytics
6:02 pm on August 25th, 2012
Did Rasmussen vary the order of the candidates on that first candidate? What did they do if the respondent didn’t make a choice the first time? Were there any questions before those two that might have influenced answers?
I ask because Rasmussen does some things they shouldn’t.
6:03 pm on August 25th, 2012
Meant to say “first question” above.
6:55 pm on August 25th, 2012
Well well well! This cat will take ~1% vote from Owebama this year. My family gave three votes to Bob Barr rather than vote for the Amnesty pushing surrender monkey McInsane and his loopy, big spending Grandma Sarah.
In 2012, Johnson will take the vote from the left. End result, Owebama will lose to the Romney/Ryan Recovery of 2012 and this vote will not play any part in Owebama’s loss.
6:56 pm on August 25th, 2012
As Al Sharpnot would say, ” Matter much not, nor does tally bunch.”
7:27 pm on August 25th, 2012
Devin Bent, what does Rasmussen do that they shouldn’t?
I ask because I have always been wary of them as they publish political opinion pieces instead of trying to stay impartial.
11:43 pm on August 25th, 2012
Interesting, they do a poll and hardly anyone was aware of it till after the fact…
5:17 am on August 26th, 2012
I’m not an expert. I think Nate Silver has written on this for the NYTimes.
However, the other day I saw what I believe is called a Push Poll. In this case Rasmussen gave the respondent negative information about the auto bailout — that it might cost $25 billion. They provide this rather than positive info — like jobs saved. Impact on balance of trade, etc.
They then ask the respondent’s view on the bailout. This will have a much more dramatic impact on the results of the poll than most might imagine and just about guarantees a negative result.
It impacts two ways.
1. Most respondents are not that thoughtful or well informed. A little info can have an impact.
2. Many respondents will answer to please — that is they give the answer they think is expected of them even if it is not what they think. Thus a poll has to be careful not to tip them off. The push poll does exactly the wrong thing.
Even if Rasmussen publishes the push element — newspapers/TV rarely pass this on to the readers/viewers. Typical reporter doesn’t even understand this.
This is just one way to bias a poll. Hope it helps
6:06 am on August 26th, 2012
The Libertarian Party is interesting. The party platform seems to be the best of the Dems and Reps combined into one party. Maybe Gary Johnson and the Libertarians are worth learning about.
What would happen to the country if Gary Johnson were elected? How would Congress react? If Johnson sent legislation to Congress would both parties reject it or would one party seek to join him to the detriment of the opposing party? One thing for sure, we can’t afford four more years of a “do nothing” Congress…Oh wait!…We’re very likely to have four more years of partisanship politics anyway.
2:23 pm on August 26th, 2012
Rasmussen has engaged is wording questions in order to steer respondents towards certain answers in the past.
A former editor from Gallup has admitted that most respondents are undecided, and pollsters phrase wording in order to coerse a decision towards one candidate or another even when the subject has little opinion or knowledge about the candidates in the polls.
10:48 am on August 29th, 2012
So Gary Johnson is now planning to split the vote and give the election to Obama? If that happens, he AND Ron Paul can both go down in history as the people who lost America to Socialism. History will remember these two in an even worse light than they do Perot.
1:34 pm on August 29th, 2012
You are right on target. It is now about the egos of these two no chance candidates and their supporters.
1:08 am on September 1st, 2012
Blah blah blah split the vote, swaying elections. So what? Both parties are garbage, stop allowing them to BOTH ruin this country. The longer you all stay in your little box and vote for one of them to spite the other the longer you hurt all of us. Live Free.