On September 16, Public Policy Polling released this poll for the presidential election in Virginia. See question 7, in which respondents were given the choice of all five presidential candidates who are on the Virginia ballot. The results are: President Obama 49%, Mitt Romney 45%, Gary Johnson 2%, Virgil Goode 1%, Jill Stein 1%, undecided 3%. Thanks to PoliticalWire for the link.
Surprised Goode is so low in his own state. I seen a different poll that had him at 9% in Virgina.
This poll is not accurate in my opinion. I would say Goode is in the 3-5% range with Johnson around 2% in VA. Stein is likely around 1/2% maybe 1%. The poll he was at 9% had a bigger percentage of conservative voters if I remember right. Glad they included all 5.
I think this election is going to end up pretty much following the pattern of the last two elections nationally. Obama and Romney will share about 98.5% of the vote, with everyone else sharing the last 1.5%. I think the variation from state to state will be unremarkable. Johnson will come in 3rd. Stein 4th, Goode 5th, Anderson 6th, Lindsay 7th. I think generally in states where the top seven finishers are on the ballot the order of finish will be as above. Johnson will finish 4th in a few states, but I don’t see him falling further in many jurisdictions. Stein will finish 3rd in a few states, but may finish 6th in a few states. I think Anderson is a real wild card. He may come in 3rd in many states where he is on the ballot but I find this impossible to determine. I think many candidates who are each only on the ballot in a few states could have surprising appeal in the states where they are on the ballot. Here is a horribly unscientific off the cuff prediction:
Johnson: 550,000 votes
Stein: 350,000
Goode: 150,000
Anderson: 50,000
Lindsay: 25,000
I really don’t see anyone getting 1,000,000 votes. Maybe Johnson, but it’ll be tough for him. These PPP polls are being too generous.
I say Johnson beats Goode in Virginia.
Since its inception as the US Taxpayer’s Party in 1992, the Constitution Party has finished 7th, 6th, 6th, 5th, and 5th, respectively, in the Presidential elections. A year ago 3rd place was a very realistic possibility. Now, it appears that 4th place is more of a realistic goal based on recent polling. The CST had more votes than the Green party in 2008, and ballot access may prove the difference if the Green Party finishes 4th over the CST. For those who are reading and say, “If you don’t finish first, it doesn’t matter.” You are right, concerning the Presidency, but garnering more votes may lead to more people joining the party in the near future.
Regarding this post, in the 11 battleground states, voters will be very unlikely to vote third party, so for the CST, Utah will probably be our best result, since Romney is going to win with over 68% of the vote…
The constitution party regularly breaks 5% in a couple Utah counties. I wouldn’t be surprise if they break 2.5% statewide in Utah. There lack of ballot access will keep them from doing much better than they did last year.
I think Johnson will best Ed Clark’s 1980 run in total votes and in percentage of the national vote. He will definitely hit the mid single digits in several of the mountain states, and he may near 10% in Alaska and New Mexico. An interesting question is whether Johnson will break clark’s statewide vote percentage record. Clark hit 11.66% in Alaska in 1980, that’s a rough record to beat. The true prize for the libertarian party is whether Johnson can reach 5% nationally which unlocks about a hundred millions dollars in federal funding for them. While feasible, i think is still very much in doubt that Johnson will reach that goal.
5 percent would translate into roughly 6 million plus votes. Not too shabby.
Well, considering that 2 million people voted for Ron Paul this year, and considering that that was in elections inclusive of only one third of the electorate (yes I realize some elections were open primaries but how often do you think Democrats voted in those, or even independents in elections after super Tuesday?), and lastly considering the turnout was low due to a generally poor field of candidates, I think tripling that vote total or slightly more is not an unreasonable goal (=6-7 million votes). Of course, this all depends on how effective or active the GJ campaign is these last few weeks, but it is a reasonable standard by which the campaign should hold itself.
I want my bong filled with whatever Will Fenwick has in his!
#7 I think more people who voted for RP in the primaries will end up pulling the lever for Romney than his most vocal supporters realize.
I think that anybody who voted for Paul in the primary and votes for Romney in November is a complete idiot with no self respect. The GOP needs to be destroyed.
#8 For Gary Johnson my predictions are based off state level polling data, and for Virgil Goode one merely needs to look at county level results in utah in the past two elections.
3) Johnson will break the 1 million vote total. Stein will do a little bit better at 400,000. The others are about right. (Goode–depending on Virginia)