Gary Johnson Gets 19% In LASPAC Nationwide Poll

Fair is fair.

And don't forget the Gary Johnson Twitter Bomb tomorrow, 8/3.

LASPAC

We just conducted a nationwide telephone poll of registered voters. Here’s what the poll sounded like:



The results:
Barack Obama 56%
Gary Johnson 19%
Undecided/neither 25%

You may be thinking, “Why does that matter, since it doesn’t include the Republican?”

Here’s why it matters:

Gallup has been conducting presidential polls just like this:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150743/Obama-Romney.aspx

Note the wording of their question:
“Suppose the presidential election were held today. If Barack Obama were the Democratic Party’s candidate and Mitt Romney were the Republican Party’s candidate, who would you vote for, Barack Obama, the Democrat or Mitt Romney, the Republican?”

It includes the incumbent, Obama, plus one selected challenger, Romney — and no one else.

Now here’s our question:
“Suppose the presidential election were held today. If Barack Obama were the Democratic Party’s candidate and Gary Johnson were the Libertarian Party’s candidate, who would you vote for, Barack Obama, the Democrat or Gary Johnson, the Libertarian?”

It’s exactly the same question, except we picked a different challenger.

The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) wants candidates to get at least 15% in nationwide polls. But most of those polls only include Obama and Romney. So, if those polls count, then our poll counts too.

We did this poll cheaply (but scientifically) using a less-known robocall firm. Now we want to do it again, on a bigger scale, using a well-known polling organization like Public Policy Polling, SurveyUSA, or Gallup. If we ask the question the same way (just like Gallup), Gary Johnson has a very good chance of getting more than 15%.

Let’s show that to the Commission on Presidential Debates! They can’t have it both ways — they can’t include biased polls that only name Obama and Romney, and then ignore polls like ours.

We’d love to push the CPD into a corner. If they have to accept polls like this, then Gary Johnson has a great chance of getting into the debates. At worst, they’ll have to start demanding that all their polling organizations include Gary Johnson — and that would be a good thing too.