Ron Paul '08: A Primary vs Caucus Results Case Study

[Tom Rinaldo]

No serious political observer ever believed that Ron Paul had a real chance to win the Republican nomination for President in 2008. Ron Paul was always destined to be a spirited also ran. But one thing Ron Paul was clearly able to do was gather a very enthusiastic and determined group of followers around him who were willing to go to extraordinary lengths in their attempt to win Ron Paul the Republican nomination. I decided to review the election results for the Republican contests using February 5th as a snap shot in time baseline, while Mitt Romney was still in the race and Republicans still had 4 contenders actively fighting for the nomination. I wanted to see if there was any noticeable difference in how Ron Paul, with his highly motivated core base of support, performed in Primary vs Caucus contests. This is what I found.

The following 15 States held Republican Primaries on February 5th. I will list them all along with the percentage of votes that Ron Paul won in each:

Alabama: Ron Paul 3%
Arizona: Ron Paul 4%
Arkansas: Ron Paul 5%
California: Ron Paul 4%
Connecticut: Ron Paul 4%
Delaware: Ron Paul 4%
Georgia: Ron Paul 3%
Illinois: Ron Paul 5%
Massachusetts: Ron Paul 3%
Missouri: Ron Paul 4%
New Jersey: Ron Paul 5%
New York: Ron Paul 6%
Oklahoma: Ron Paul 3%
Tennessee: Ron Paul 6%
Utah: Ron Paul 3%


The following 6 States held Republican Caucuses on February 5th. I will list them all along with the percentage of votes that Ron Paul won in each:

Alaska: Ron Paul 17%
Colorado: Ron Paul 8%
Minnesota: Ron Paul 17%
Montana: Ron Paul 25%
North Dakota: Ron Paul 21%
West Virginia: Ron Paul 0%


Several observations jump right out at you from this data. The first is the remarkably small range in support, a 3% differential, that Ron Paul registered in the Super Tuesday primaries that he was on the ballot for; all of his results falling between 3% and 6%, with his average showing for all 15 Super Tuesday primary states combined being 4.13%.

The caucus states however tell a different story, with Ron Paul's best showing in a caucus state (Montana where he won an impressive one quarter of the total vote that night) beating his best showing in a primary state (New York and Tennessee) by over 400%. Ron Paul also had his poorest showing in the caucus state of West Virginia, where it seemed he could not reach the viable threshold and tallied zero support as a result. His average showing for all 6 Super Tuesday caucus states combined is 14.67%. If one were to arbitrarily assume that Ron Paul initially received the same degree of support in West Virginia that he did in his average primary state, had his WV support been viable (a conservative estimate) Paul's average percentage of support in these 6 States would break 15%.

In total then, even factoring in his WV support at zero, Ron Paul received a little over 350% more support in Super Tuesday caucus states than he did in Super Tuesday primary states.

Admittedly there are other variables at play, the most important being the likelihood that Ron Paul campaigned much more aggressively in caucus states than in primary states, but that begs the question, why? There is some potential circular reasoning to consider. Did Ron Paul fare so much worse in primary states because he only contested caucus states, or did he only contest caucus states because he knew he fared so much more poorly in primary states? Some circumstantial evidence supports the latter conclusion.

There was one primary state that Ron Paul did very aggressively contest and that was New Hampshire. He had his best 2008 primary showing in New Hampshire, winning 8% of the vote. New Hampshire of course is the state with the motto "Live Free or Die", good potential territory for an anti-war Libertarian. Although NH has been trending Democratic in very recent years, those Democrats weren't voting in NH's Republican primary, and by all reports Ron Paul devoted significant resources toward doing well in New Hampshire. New Hampshire's primary date was sandwiched between two Republican caucus contests which Ron Paul also contested, and the Republican field was more crowded in all of them than on Super Tuesday, with Thompson and Giuliano still in the race for all three. In Iowa preceding New Hampshire, Ron Paul won 10% of the vote, and in Nevada following New Hampshire, Ron Paul won 14% of the vote.

Observations and insights gleaned from looking at Ron Paul's relative success in caucus over primary states are not directly transferable onto the Democratic nomination battle now unfolding for several important reasons, most notable among them being the fact that both remaining Democrats in the race for the Democratic nomination have always been serious contenders to walk away with that nomination. None the less it does, in my opinion, shed light on how a highly dedicated and motivated core base of supporters can exercise far greater influence in determining the results in a caucus contest than they can in a primary contest. In Ron Paul's case the difference is striking.

[AX10]

1. kick/rec

Good points!

[Lithos]

2. Look at the numbers

And the dwindling candidate pool. Probably more of an explanation than any increase of support for this loser.

L-

[NJSecularist]

4. Thank you

That is just what I was going to say.

You know Hillary supporters are desperate when they are comparing Obama to Ron Paul.

[Lithos]

6. Ron Paul is a story to himself

And a piss poor one at that. He's a loser just like the other Republics. All of the Democratic Candidates are infinitely better than anything the GOP has fielded.

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. But of course

Any of our 2008 Democratic Candidates would beat Ron Paul, but if it is fair to call the backers of any political campaign "a movement", Ron Paul certainly built a movement behind him.

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. The comparisons are all taken on the same day, Feb. 5th

There were the exact same number of Republican candidates running in the caucuses that day as there were in the primaries, yet Ron Paul ran 350% stronger in caucuses than in primaries.

[bidenista]

3. great original work

And an interesting read. Thanks!

:applause:

[book_worm]

5. Luckily Obama has won as many primaries as he has caucuses

and our caucuses have had major turnouts compared to relatively small turnout numbers on the GOP side. For instance 200,000 or more turned out in WA compared to the previous record of 100,000. Yes, Obama has done better in caucuses but it also shows how he can motivate voters to turn out and have a strong organization which we need to win in November. But he has almost won as many primaries as well as HRC. By Wed he might actually have won more primaries or at least tied HRC.

[joshcryer]

7. The comparison was only to show the influance a small number of people can have. This is reflected..

...by Obama spending so much in on the ground staffers. He knew he'd win this by having people, on the ground, getting groups to go vote for him. It has been an excellent stragety.

$20 million will buy an election in caucuses.

[Tom Rinaldo]

31. Your points are valid

But the turnout for a caucus is always far less than the turn out for a primary. And there are some voters who never will feel comfortable participating in a caucus setting, but who would gladly vote by secret ballot.

[abburdlen]

8. Caucuses are less democratic than Primaries

there really isn't any other way to play it.

They are less inclusive, more burdensome and your vote isn't private.
I hope eventually we'll scrap them along with fixing it so small states like Iowa and New Hampshire don't decide which candidates we have to chose from and add more transparency in the area of superdelegates (if not junking that element all together)

But let's be clear - this is the system we have at hand. No candidate or supporter ought to be looking at the evidence that our current methods are imperfect as an argument to rework the process during the nomination. Period.
As screwed up as it is, trying to change the rules as we go along will literally break the Democratic party.

[joshcryer]

10. I agree this is our system and we shouldn't question the results.

And I find it heartwarming that someone with your avatar agrees that caucuses are not at all representitive of the populas.

[abburdlen]

12. I said they were less democratic

not that they were not representative of the populace - I made no claims about the best system of representation.
one of those words are important sort of things....

I'm glad if I can be an example of someone who puts principles above politics.
:toast:

to me!


edited because spellcheck keeps making me look like a full!

[Tom Rinaldo]

13. I'll drink to you also!

An intellectual case can be made that a caucus system by nature allows a candidate with the most compelling arguments favoring him or her to do better. There are many ways to look at it, but it seems obvious to me that the system used effects the results gotten.

[anigbrowl]

14. Please you guys...it's 'populace'. Literacy is sexy!

'Populous' is a real word, but it means 'having a high population', whereas 'populace' is a synonym for 'population'.

This has been a public service announcement.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Your conclusion is exactly the same as mine

That includes me fully agreeing that cacuses are part of the system that all candidates were faced with when they decided to run, so their results are as legitimate as any others. There is no crooked playing field because all candidates are running on the same field when they compete in a cacaus.

For anyone familiar with horse raising (my father was into it), the difference is more like the difference between running a race on a normal dry track and running one on a track that was wet from a recent storm. Wet dirt changes the dynamic of a race from the more typical dry track race. Some horses can consistently perform on a wet track better than others. They are called "mudders". Often "mudders" are not nearly as good on dry tracks as they are on wet ones.

[BurningDog]

15. There is no other explanation for this than (relatively) small but dedicated support

Attending a caucus takes considerably more time and effort than voting in a primary. He may only have support of 5% of Republicans, but he's motivated that 5% enough that 100% of them will go out of their way to support him, whereas the weekend warrior Republicans don't make it to the caucus, but can spare 5 minutes of their time to vote in a primary.

[avrdream]

16. Exactly why Obama seems to be doing better in caucuses.

His supporters are certainly fervent.

[TacticalPeek]

17. Veddy interistink.

Thanks.

[totodeinhere]

19. How many caucuses did Ron Paul win?

Of course the answer is a big fat zero. There has to be something more going on with Obama. He is actually winning caucuses. Plus he has won a lot of primaries too. I don't think there is much of an analogy here between Paul's campaign and Obama's campaign.

Oh, and the biggest difference is that Paul never had a chance, whereas Obama has at least a 50% chance of becoming our nominee.

[Tom Rinaldo]

20. Of course Obama is a much stronger overall candidate than Ron Paul

And his support is much broader than Ron Paul's. I thought I was clear about that in my OP. I said there were a number of differences between the Dem and Repub sides on this, but the biggest one is that Barack Obama has always been a serious viable candidate and Ron Paul never was.

However I stand by what I wrote. The fact that Ron Paul perfomed almost 350% better in caucus states than in primary states to me illustrates how candidate strengths manifest differently depending on the election process used. Barack Obama does have a better track record in caucus states than in primary states, and Hillary Clinton has a much worse record in caucus states than she does in primary states, where she has been doing relatively well.

[Honeycombe8]

21. Why are you pushing Republican "Ron Paul" in a Democratic forum? nt

[Tom Rinaldo]

22. Why are you being so seemingly obtuse?

Nowhere did I "push" Ron Paul, and my reason for discussing this should be clear to anyone who reads the OP.

[abburdlen]

24. He isn't pushing Ron Paul

It is possible to make observation about it not be pro-somebody.

I think the point of Tom's post was to demonstrate that in a caucus a small group of highly motivated individuals can have a greater impact than in a primary.

[Honeycombe8]

25. I guess I missed the parts where he discusses the Democratic candidates. He's a Paul pusher. nt

[Tom Rinaldo]

26. Ya think this was a "Push Paul" (yuk yuk) ? Really?

And any of the many threads on DU that discuss McCain or Romney or Huckabee's campaigns are all pushing those guys too, right?

[abburdlen]

27. The gig is up Tom.

all those years of eloquently supporting Democratic candidates, we now know it was just a set up to sneak your "RON PAUL IS TEH GREATEST EVAR!!!!" post in here.
for shame.

[Tom Rinaldo]

29. I didn't think anyone noticed me slip over to the dark side, lol n/t

[MH1]

23. I'm thinking it might not be a bad thing

if the party's nominee is chosen by people who are more involved and therefore (generally speaking) at least a little more informed.

People who just show up to vote and do nothing else, are often not even looking beyond what brief snippets slip through the MSM filter to make their choice.

I say this as someone who has been canvassing a few times over the years, often in the same precinct.

Also, people who are active in the primary will be more active in the general, particularly if their own candidate wins the primary.

So it comes down to who are we better off with as a candidate: the person who wins by name recognition, or the person who can energize the most activists?

I haven't made up my mind on this 100%, but I won't bother saying "don't flame me" cuz I know someone will. :)

[Tom Rinaldo]

28. I have mixed feelings about caucuses

But bottom line I lean pretty negative against them. Just to be clear, I posted on DU before the Nevada caucus (the only caucus Clinton has won so far) that whatever the results from it turned out to be, I did not think they rated the type of serious attention that a primary result deserved.

I have a fond spot for the Iowa caucus to this day, even though the results there this year did not favor my candidate. My only real problems with the Iowa caucus are 1) that Iowa is so overwhelmingly white and 2) that the results from it get blown so totally out of proportion.

Iowa does caucus about as well as caucus can be done. For one thing the citizenry there takes it all so god damn seriously. They run almost as well as a swiss watch, and participants rarely fear the chaos of them or feel overly pressured by supporters of other candidates any more than is inevitable for that type of process. Even more important though, essentially all of the candidates spend a whole lot of time inside Iowa before that caucus is held, and it seems like virtually all of Iowa's citizens spend a whole lot of time getting to actually know those candidates before that caucus is held. That is the key for me, and that is why I am fond of Iowa's caucus.

If the caucus goers in Iowa get really enthused about a candidate it is because they have gotten a lot of exposure to that candidate, but even more important, they have had a chance to be really exposed to all of the candidates first before locking into any one of them to support. It is an egalitarian equal opportunity to become deeply informed environment. And because retail campaigning is so prolonged and the candidates are so accessible to all of Iowa's voters, it means something to me when one or more candidates build a strong and informed base of support there.

For one thing, it is not only the hard core self starter political junkie types who go out of their way to look hard into who they want to support in Iowa. It comes closer to a real cross section of the electorate, and that matters to me. The activist core of our Party, folks like us here, are a key Democratic constituency but we are not a representative cross section of Democrats. We allot our personal time differently then most, we spend more of it online for one thing, but I'm sure a demographic study would reveal a lot more differences than that.

Caucuses work best in small states where all of the candidates actually spend a large amount of time there in person doing retail campaigning. Nevada maybe can grow into that over time with practice. Later date in the primary season caucuses to me were mostly designed as a low cost means of selecting specific delegates to go to the Democratic National Convention to represent their state there. They mostly reflected the sentiment being expressed at the national level with natural regional variations, but they were not really that actively "contested", usually the race was over before they were held.

[Tom Rinaldo]

32. No one flamed you anyway

even if no one else wanted to discuss the points you raised :)

[Tom Rinaldo]

33. Sorry for the dupe posts n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

34. Something screwy happened trying to post. Sorry for the dupes n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

30. An Update about West Virginia

I have this OP posted as a Diary on Mydd and a poster there provided me with more information on the West Virginia Republican contest:

"I have a small correction that changes your data a bit: West Virginia did not hold a Republican caucus, it held a Republican "convention." Thus, it was even less Democratic than a caucus, attended by perhaps 1000 state Republicans.

There were two ballots. On the first ballot, Paul got a little over 10% of the vote. Romney lead with 42%, but the convention rules required an outright majority to get the delegates at stake. Paul and then McCain supporters (also about 10%) threw their votes to Huckabee (who had about 35%), and put him over the top. McCain supporters did it to screw over Romney, Paul supporters did so in engage for three of the eighteen delegates at state."

It seems like the entire concept of any popular vote there is a stretch. But if we factor in Ron Paul's "actual" support in West Virginia at 10%, continue to call West Virginia a caucus state and then redo the averages, that would push Paul's totals up to 16.33% in caucus states compared to my earlier lower figure of 14.67%.

That would mean that Ron Paul did almost exactly 4 times better in Super Tuesday caucus states than he did in Super Tuesday primary states.

[Tom Rinaldo]

35. I honestly believe that the Caucus process itself...

...tends to produce somewhat different results than a secret ballot primary contest would. In some ways it is easier to see on the Republican side because Ron Paul is much more of a niche candidate than the Democratic front runners are/were and so the vote shift is more dramatic.

Paul won delegates in three states, and all of them were caucus states, and he may just have "negotiated" getting some delegates from West Virginia also. If the Republicans played by the same rules as Democrats and had fewer winner take all contests, the advantage for Paul in caucus over primary states would be much more pronounced.

Ron Paul never came close to clearing a 15% hurdle in a primary state, the closest he came was 8% in NH and two 6% showings below that. Ron Paul cleared 15% in six caucus states, and fell just short at 14% in North Dakota - but North Dakota's system did award him 5 delegates, the same as McCain and Huckabee received.