My Blog List

Barbour, Paul, and Johnson

Some recent announcements in the race for the GOP presidential nomination provide a good opportunity for me to review where things stand -- based on our latest update of the views of Republicans nationwide.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour dropped out of the race officially, even though, of course, he was never in the race officially.

Our tracking of Barbour's name identification and image gave no indication that he was generating any unusual enthusiasm among Republicans nationwide. He was recognized by only 43% of Republicans, virtually the same as the 41% who recognized him back in early January. His Positive Intensity Score of 11 was the same as in late February, when we began tracking it regularly -- and well below average for the candidates we track.

Barbour got 2% of support in our latest trial heat measure in which Republicans were read a list of candidates and asked whom they would support.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson announced the formation of an exploratory committee for his possible bid for the Republican nomination. Johnson has the lowest name recognition of any candidate we are currently tracking, at 17%. However, that’s up from 12% in late February. Still, more than 8 in 10 Republicans nationwide don’t know who Johnson is. His Positive Intensity Score has routinely been at or near the bottom of the list, and is now 3 in our latest update covering April 11-24, 2012.

Congressman Ron Paul also announced on Tuesday the formation of an exploratory committee. Paul, who at age 75 has run for president before, has the virtue of fairly high name recognition, at 73%, putting him just below the group of those potential candidates who are most recognized -- Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, and Mike Huckabee (and of course Donald Trump, whom we will include in our tracking reports beginning next week).

Paul’s Positive Intensity Score is now at 15, virtually unchanged over time, but in the same range as that of Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, and just below that of Sarah Palin. All of these remain behind the top two in terms of Positive Intensity -- Huckabee and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

It should be noted that Bachmann’s name recognition has climbed further than anyone else's since late February -- up six percentage points from 52% to 58% today. As noted, Gary Johnson’s name recognition is up five points, for the second highest gain of any of the candidates we track.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

dg3