Ron Paul Running Second in Iowa
Congressman Ron Paul, R-Lake Jackson, appears at a Tea Party debate earlier this year. Paul is running second in most opinion polls in Iowa. Photo by Ben Philpott/KUT NewsAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Less than a month before the Iowa Republican Caucus, Texas Rep. Ron Paul is second in the most recent opinion polls. Paul is polling at 18 percent among likely Iowa Caucus voters in three different polls published in the last five days.
Depending on which one you look at, Paul trails Newt Gingrich by anywhere between 9 and 15 percentage points.
“On the face of it, Ron Paul should be in the conversation with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, but you’ve got to look deeper than that,” said Reid Wilson, editor-in-chief of National Journal’s Hotline.
“Ron Paul has a hard ceiling in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, and everywhere else around the country,” Wilson said. “He is not the traditional kind of Republican that we’ve seen in recent years, and that means that he doesn’t have a lot of fans outside of his own base.”
Wilson says Paul’s supporters are highly enthusiastic, but he isn’t mainstream enough to capture a compelling percentage of the popular vote.
But it seems the Ron Paul camp would beg to differ. Campaign officials didn’t return our request for an interview. But in a statement released today, national campaign Chairman Jesse Benton highlighted Paul’s ability to “attract independents and Democrats because the goal is to unseat an incumbent president whose base is increasingly weak-kneed.”
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