| Politics

Ron Paul and the Libertarian National Convention

by Stephen Gordon

A question which I've found interesting is how Libertarian Party members will respond to the Ron Paul campaign at the Libertarian National Convention. The best data I've got available to determine LP member intent indicates the following:

Once again, Ron Paul is the big winner in the latest LibertarianLists.com survey. When asked about their presidential preference, 73.5 percent of the libertarians who participated in the online survey chose Dr. Paul as their presidential preference. This is an increase of 3.9 percent from the previous LibertarianLists survey.

Among the 501 self-identified members of the Libertarian Party, 76.4 percent chose Paul, an increase of 4.2 percent from the previous survey period.

In addition to the general presidential preference question, the survey participants who identified themselves as LP members were asked two specific questions dealing with Ron Paul and the convention.

The first question asked: "Assuming that Ron Paul is no longer in the presidential race at the time of the Libertarian Party presidential nominating convention, for which Libertarian Party presidential candidate would you cast your nominating vote?"

54.7 percent of the participants answered "Undecided," 6.4 percent chose NOTA and 5 percent selected "Other," while the remaining 33.9 percent selected one of 12 LP candidates. It's assumed that the majority of the 54.7 percent and some of the NOTAs maintain support for Paul.

The other question was more telling: "Assuming that Ron Paul is running competitively as a Republican candidate at the time of the Libertarian Party presidential nominating convention, for which Libertarian Party presidential candidate would you cast your nominating vote?"

In this case, 50.5 percent said they would "Would try to change the bylaws in order for Ron Paul to receive the Libertarian Party nomination or become engaged in some sort of effort to draft Ron Paul as the Libertarian presidential nominee."

23.3 percent were "Undecided," 4.6 percent chose NOTA and 2.6 percent chose "Other." Only 19 percent actually supported one of the 12 LP candidates.

Libertarian Party bylaws clearly provide that, under current circumstances, Dr. Paul is not eligible for the LP nomination. However, with data like these, it seems quite possible that convention delegates may decide to change the bylaws in order to somehow endorse or support Ron Paul's campaign.

Full baseline data here. Related perspective on the LP presidential candidates here.