# Start Here > Guest Forum >  Nate Silver's Website: "The Rand Paul will win over young voters myth"

## 56ktarget

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/t...g-voters-myth/




> Rand Paul is having a moment. A recent cover story for The New York Times Magazine dubbed the potential Republican presidential candidate the “Pearl Jam” of the libertarian movement and a force that could win over young voters in 2016. It’s a tantalizing theory for the right and a fun story for the media. But the data suggests that the senator from Kentucky has his work cut out for him.
> 
> So far, Paul isn’t doing much better among young voters than the Republican nominee in 2012, Mitt Romney, or than Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor, is currently doing.
> 
> 
> Since the beginning of the year, there have been eight live-interview national polls that detail results among young voters (ages 18 to 29 or 18 to 34), and matched Paul against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Together, these polls give us the views of more than 1,000 young voters. The same polls matched Clinton against Christie. The surveys show that young voters don’t see any difference between Paul and other Republican politicians.
> 
> 
> Why should we trust these surveys? We shouldn’t expect early polls to tell us the final vote in 2016, but it’s probable that each candidate’s coalitions will remain mostly intact. Both the subsample and the overall margin should shift relatively uniformly. For example, Republicans should do better with white voters than they do overall, even if their margin among both shrinks or widens.
> ...

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## jclay2

This is why I hate statistics. They are easily manipulated/made up/and can be utilized however you see fit. I don't follow this guy's website, but I doubt he has done a luke warm hit job against the rest of the field. He basically states that there is not a lot to go off of but still throws up the headline "Myth: Rand Paul doing well in any fashion".

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## 56ktarget

You do know who nate silver is right? The guy who predicted 50 out of 50 states in 2012 and 49 out of 50 in 2008? Admittedly it's not the same guy who wrote this article but since silver is editor in chief he approved it.

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## Brett85

Some of what he says in the article is false.  For instance, Rand isn't opposed to a path to citizenship for illegals.  He just doesn't support creating a new path.  He thinks they should have to get in the back of the already existing line.

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## MaxHen

Rand has much more room to improve among young voters than any of the other GOP contenders. Christie may be about tied with him now, but Christie's numbers are likely to stay more or less the same (if not decline if either of his investigations turn bad) as the election approaches. Paul has a much better chance of seeing his numbers among young voters improve as more people find out how his positions differ from most Republicans.

Also, some of those points about Rand's positions are just dumb. Most young people don't really care about foreign aid. On foreign policy, they're going to agree more with an anti-war candidate who opposes foreign aid and the UN than they will with an interventionist who supports those things.

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## Danke

"they don’t want the U.S. to withdraw from the world."

What an idiotic article.

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## Acala

> You do know who nate silver is right? The guy who predicted 50 out of 50 states in 2012 and 49 out of 50 in 2008? Admittedly it's not the same guy who wrote this article but since silver is editor in chief he approved it.


People don't support freedom because it is the fastest horse in the horse race.  They support it because not forcing your values on other people at gunpoint is the right thing to do.

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## NorthCarolinaLiberty

> You do know who nate silver is right? The guy who predicted 50 out of 50 states in 2012 and 49 out of 50 in 2008? Admittedly it's not the same guy who wrote this article but since silver is editor in chief he approved it.



Never heard of him, but pretty much anybody can predict those numbers.  If you're over thirty, know basic history, and read a couple of polls on the handful of toss-up states, then anybody can do it.

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## fisharmor

> A recent cover story for The New York Times Magazine dubbed the potential Republican presidential candidate the “Pearl Jam” of the libertarian movement and a force that could win over young voters in 2016




Article starts out comparing a guy who will be liked by young people....
...to a band that was popular before those young people were even born.

FAIL

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## kylejack

> Some of what he says in the article is false.  For instance, Rand isn't opposed to a path to citizenship for illegals.  He just doesn't support creating a new path.  He thinks they should have to get in the back of the already existing line.


For many immigrants, there's no such thing as a line. For example, it's basically impossible to immigrate legally from Mexico unless you're like a high-level doctor or sports star, or if your parents or children are already US citizens.

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## Tywysog Cymru

Young voters won't be too excited for Hillary.

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## Fourteen

Does this mean I'm supposed to abandon Rand? I mean, I'm only 22. Does that mean I'm supposed to breathlessly support Shrill-ary? I'd vote for Rand any day of the year over her.

Polls don't mean a lot when there hasn't even been a single primary debate.

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