Poll Showing Romney Beating Paul is Rigged

**Credit to Galileo Galilei of Liberty Forest.

Poll showing Romney beating Paul in NH was rigged

A recent poll in New Hampshire said that if Mitt Romney got into the 2016 presidential race, he would beat Rand Paul by a margin of 39%-7%.

This poll was seized upon by Paul family detractor Dave Weigel of Slate. A link to the poll can be found in the article by Weigel below:

Why Rand Paul Is Not the “2016 GOP Front-Runner,” in One Chart
LINK

However, Ben Swann's website reports that the poll question producing this improbable result was biased. See here:

quote:

---

Eric Levenson also pointed out the fact that the University of New Hampshire poll’s question may have caused a bias among participants, “The particular phrasing of the question posed to responders also likely had an impact on Romney’s big advantage. The pollers first asked a bevy of questions and opinions about the expected Republican contestants, including Christie, Ryan, Paul, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and others. The poller then asked a follow-up question: ‘If Mitt Romney were to run for the Republican nomination…’ followed by a list of all those same potential candidates. Specifically calling out Romney before mentioning the other names may have had the effect of highlighting him above others and influencing the response.”

---

LINK /

Romney may well be leading Rand right now in NH, but not by such a large margin. To the extent Romney is leading is mostly due to a big advantage in name recognition and that NH is a border state to Romney's hone state of Massachusetts.

In a real election, a race between Rand and Romney in NH would be competitive.