Percentage of total state population voting for Ron Paul compared

[Keith and stuff]

Louisiana Primary 3/24/12 0.2%

 

[klamath]

I think there are two faults with your stats. Mixing primaries and caucuses and not taking into acount the bandwagon effect and the effect of losing the early primaries and caucuses. I guarentee that RP's percentages would have been higher in all states and even chalenging NH in his later favorable states if he had won Iowa or NH.

 

[Keith and stuff]

I think there are two faults with your stats. Mixing primaries and caucuses and not taking into acount the bandwagon effect and the effect of losing the early primaries and caucuses. I guarentee that RP's percentages would have been higher in all states and even chalenging NH in his later favorable states if he had won Iowa or NH.

I actually thought I already addressed both of those issues. I broke it up, not only by primary or caucus, but by which type of voters are allowed to vote in each primary and caucus. I also put the states in chronological order to address the bandwagon effect. I even showed the percentages from 2008 so people could compare progress between the cycles. Did I not do all of that? Is there something I am missing? Would you do something differently?

 

[MelissaCato]

I think it would be interesting to know exactly how many people are eligible to vote in each state. I know in pennsylvania if you have a felony you are not allowed to vote. When I go canvassing, a lot of people say they lost the right to vote because of a felony such as writing a check that bounced and they were charged with a felony. Even having a gun rack in the back of a pickup will get you a felony some people said. If this is the case it will be interesting to know how many people are eligible to vote in each state. I think this is a contributing factor. JMO.

 

[Keith and stuff]

I think it would be interesting to know exactly how many people are eligible to vote in each state. I know in pennsylvania if you have a felony you are not allowed to vote. When I go canvassing, a lot of people say they lost the right to vote because of a felony such as writing a check that bounced and they were charged with a felony. Even having a gun rack in the back of a pickup will get you a felony some people said. If this is the case it will be interesting to know how many people are eligible to vote in each state. I think this is a contributing factor. JMO.

http://felonvoting.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=286 and http://www.aclupa.org/issues/votingissues/votingrightsofexfelons.htm
These sources say felons may vote in PA. Where is your source? I understand some states have terrible laws that felons aren't allowed to vote. I am sorry that the people in those states tolerate and/or want those terrible laws. I don't live in of those states. However, it seems that Maine and Vermont are best, as felons may vote while in prison. Though, felons cannot caucus while in prison.

I think you could argue it either way, though. In states where felons are allowed to vote, a larger percentage of the adult population is allowed to vote, so in those states, it is even more impressive if Paul does well because his message appeals to more people. In states where felons are not allowed to vote, just the respectable people are allowed to vote. That makes Paul doing well in those states even more impressive.

 

[MelissaCato]

Yes it is a big mess over here especially in my county. What the aclu says, what the pa code book says, and what the county officials say are 3 different things. Meanwhile the public is confused and assume they lost the right to vote because of a bad check, a bag o weed or or or. I have made it my project to address this with the help of a lawyer to allow incarcerated individuals convicted of misdemeanors individuals under house arrest an individual held waiting for trial are allowed to vote with an absentee ballot. And of course all felons not incarcerated. My current problem is now the prisons not cooperating. It's 1 big mess.

 

[klamath]

I actually thought I already addressed both of those issues. I broke it up, not only by primary or caucus, but by which type of voters are allowed to vote in each primary and caucus. I also put the states in chronological order to address the bandwagon effect. I even showed the percentages from 2008 so people could compare progress between the cycles. Did I not do all of that? Is there something I am missing? Would you do something differently?

Sorry I missed the charts breaking the caucuses and primaries apart.
You can't do anything differently on the bandwagon effect as you don't know what the votes would have been. All we know is that RP's vote total would have gone up if he had been not dismissed as unviable after lossing the first three contests. We do know that RP's vote totals would have been higher in ND VT,ID,AK, NV and WA than your tabulted percentages if he wouldn't have been dismissed after the first three races. The #s very well may have rivaled NH in some of those later states.

 

[Keith and stuff]

We do know that RP's vote totals would have been higher in ND VT,ID,AK, NV and WA than your tabulted percentages if he wouldn't have been dismissed after the first three races. The #s very well may have rivaled NH in some of those later states.

The total number of votes in all of the states you mentioned would be higher, I agree.

The percentage of the total state population voting for Ron Paul compared wouldn't have come close to NH in ND, ID, AK, NV and WA, though. Those are caucus states. Even if Ron Paul won IA and NH, the amount of people that would have been willing to caucus for Ron Paul would still be low in those states because supporters for all candidate caucus at much lower rates than supporters for all candidate vote in primaries. Ron Paul may have done much better in the polls in those states. Ron Paul may have received a much higher percentage of the vote, but the percentage of the population voting for him in those caucus states would have never come close to NH levels.

Additionally, there is a pattern. A higher percentage of the population tends to vote in more important states. So, on average, the percentage of the total state population voting for the candidates is higher in the more important states. This is noticeable in the first 3 states as they were very important. The media claimed MI was becoming important so a lot of people voted there. Then the media claimed OH was somewhat important, so a lot of people voted there.

I agree with you on all fronts about VT, since it is a primary state.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Maryland 0.4% (0.3%)
Washington D.C. 0.09% (0.08%)

The percentage in both states slightly improved from 2008. Ron Paul 2nd in DC in 2012 even though one of the candidates, Newt Gingrich, lives very close to DC.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Wisconsin 4/3/12 1.5%

WI is #3 for open primary states and #4 overall.

Ron Paul had a large rally in Madison. He received 17% of the vote in the county Madison is located in, Dane County. That works out to 2% of the population of Dane County voting for Ron Paul in the WI Republican Primary in Dane County.

 

[CTRattlesnake]

The fact that South Carolina is third blows my mind

 

[Keith and stuff]

The fact that South Carolina is third blows my mind

There are a few reasons he did so well in SC. SC is one of the first states to vote so people there tend to take voting in the primary much more serious than people in most states. SC is an open primary state so it is extremely easy to vote in SC. Ron Paul had a massive boost in SC due to this success in NH. He received a 75% increase in support in the SC polls because of how well he did in NH. After the Ron Paul campaign saw the big boost in the polls, they decided to do a Youth for Ron Paul in SC. The majority of states didn't have a Youth for Ron Paul.

There are perhaps additional reasons. I don't claim to be an expert on Ron Paul's performance in SC.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Delaware 4/24/12 0.3%

Gingrich put a lot of work into DE but only received 27% of the GOP Primary vote.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Rhode Island 4/24/12 0.3%

Connecticut 4/24/12 0.2%

CT had the lowest percentage of the population voting for Ron Paul of any primary state.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Pennsylvania 4/24/12 0.8%

There is good news and bad news regarding the PA results. The largest percentage of the population voted for Ron Paul in PA out of all of the closed primary states. However, the percentage of the population voting for Ron Paul in PA went down 20% between 2008 and 2012.

 

[Keith and stuff]

New York 4/24/12 0.1%

As far as I can tell, many of the NYC area votes were never counted. Google and a couple other sources show around 95.3% of the votes in NY were counted. I added around 4.7% to Ron Paul's number and guessed that he received 26,119 votes.

Previously, it looked like CT had the lowest percentage of the population voting for Ron Paul of any primary state. However, the NY percentage is even lower.

More bad news for liberty lovers in NY. Both the percentage of the population voting for Ron Paul and the number of actual votes for Ron Paul in NY is down. Not only do people tend to not vote Republican in NY, but the people who do vote Republican are turning away from Ron Paul (or perhaps some of the former Ron Paul supporters died, moved out of the state, were put in jail, gave up on politics or don't like his message anymore.) Whatever the reasons, Ron Paul is just not popular with Republican voters in NY compared to pretty much everywhere else, even when looking at multiple factors.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Indiana 5/8/12 1.5%

North Carolina 5/8/12 1.1%

West Virgina 5/8/12 0.7%

In all 3 states, 4 candidates were listed on the ballot, though, only 2 candidates were still active candidates. Ron Paul took 2nd in 2 of the states and 3rd in WV.

Ron Paul's percentage of the total state voting population vote increased 3 fold in IN and over 2 fold in NC and WV.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Nebraska 5/15/12 1.0%
Oregon 5/15/12 0.9%
Arkansas 5/22/12 0.7%
Kentucky 5/22/12 0.5%
Texas 5/29/12 0.7%

OR is down from 2008. AR, KY and TX are up from 2008. KY is the lowest state in May.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Montana 6/5/12 2%
According to this measure, MT is the 3rd best state. Ron Paul improved in 2012 over his 1.7% in 2008.

South Dakota 6/5/12 0.8%
Ron Paul did worse in SD in 2012 than in 2008 when he had 1.2%.

New Mexico 6/5/12 0.5%
Of note, while Ron Paul was losing to Santorum in SD for much of the night, Ron Paul eventually beat Santorum in SD. The same cannot be said for NM where Santorum beat Ron Paul, even though Santorum ended his campaign almost 2 months ago.

California 6/5/12 0.4%

New Jersey 6/5/12 0.3%

 

[Keith and stuff]

There is only 1 state to go. After Utah votes on June 26th, I may make a map with colors, numbers and all that jazz.