On April 22, Public Policy Polling released this poll for the special election in South Carolina’s first U.S. House district. The overall poll shows these results: Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch 50%, Republican Mark Sanford 41%, Green Eugene Platt 3%, undecided 6%.
Most significant is the question that sorts these responses, depending on how the respondent voted for President in November 2012. Only 1% of the Obama voters intend to vote for Platt. But 5% of the Romney voters intend to do so. See the top of the fourth page. Thanks to Michael for the link.
How many folks LIE to New Age pollsters ??? — to be politically correct, of course.
Any New Age lie detectors being used on the polled folks ???
I would hesitate to generalize too much from this particular election. Mark Sanford is a sleazebag. He only got through the primary because of the advantage of name recognition. I suspect that what you are seeing here is that Republicans who reject Sanford would prefer to vote for a green than for the Democrat.
But there are lots of elections with factors like that. There is nothing extraordinary about the upcoming South Carolina election.
if one took the last 10,000 US House elections and constructed an extraordinary scale and listed the most extraordinary from those, this election, depending on the criteria might well be among the most extraordinary. It’s a special election. Both major party candidates have compelling back stories and are beyond usual politician-grade celebrity. People who can’t stand politics will tolerate news about this race. People will remember this race 20 years from now. What was was the last SC congressional race that tops this race for extraordinaryness?
I’m not surprised. In the IL 12th District last fall, Bill Enyart (D) tried to claim that Paula Bradshaw, the Green Party candidate, was “stealing” votes from his campaign, you know, the whole “spoiler theory” stupidity. A poll, however, had come out from We Ask America (or I think it was them) some time before that indicating that Paula Bradshaw was receiving an equal amount of support from both the left and the right.
If more voters start waking up in that South Carolina district and decide they want to vote for someone decent in that race, Platt better be ready for the whole “spoiler theory” attack from the Democratic Party. It’s been a favorite tactic of theirs since the 2000 election, unfortunately.
Platt also does better among conservatives vs. liberals, and among Republicans vs. Democrats. So there you go.
Platt also gets a far higher percentage among respondents who say their race is “other”. It seems like minor party candidates often do much better in the “other” racial category — I wonder why that is.
It’s a stretch to call somebody a spoiler when the person in first place is fetching 50 percent. This is a likely voter poll. The district is R+11, yet among those in the poll, Romney beats Obama by only 5. Sanford’s problem is more with Republicans not voting, than voting for the Green candidate.
The unity picnic between the participants of the year’s Mid-West Super-state Parliament Election supporters is planned to be held at Wannmaker Park on July 4th 2013, in Charleston South Carolina, between 2:15 and 4:20 pm and hosted by Libertarian Ralph Beach, Libertarian for Governor of South Carolina in 2014.
Contact Ralph Beach, President of the 9th USA Parliament, at (843) 530-1440.
Be sure to check out the election and vote. Both paper ballots and eballots are being accepted under current rules. Need not be a resident of the Mid-Atlantic to participate!
http://usparliament.org/v-h-ss4.php