46% Of Sarah Palin Supporters Say They’d Vote Third Party If She Lost GOP Nomination

A potential minefield for the GOP:

Nearly half of the Republican Primary voters who support Sarah Palin say they are at least somewhat likely to vote for a third-party candidate if she does not win the GOP presidential nomination.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely Republican Primary Voters who favor Palin say they are at least somewhat likely to vote third-party if she isn’t nominated. That includes 22% who say it is Very Likely.

This comes just days after another Rasmussen poll found that 1/3 of Republicans hope Palin isn’t the nominee, and it also stands in stark contrast with Palin’s general unfavorable reputation among the public as a whole:

Of course, it’s probable that most of these Palin supporters will vote Republican no matter what happens to her largely because of their desire to beat Obama. Nonetheless, it’s fairly clear that this cult of personality has the GOP between a rock and a hard place.

FILED UNDER: US Politics,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. anjin-san says:

    Run Sarah Run!

  2. michael reynolds says:

    I believe I get to score a solid I toldja so on this.

    The Tea Party threatens to go rogue — and they’re just stupid enough to do it — and the result is the GOP will pander to them like they pander to the Rushbots. It inevitably drives the GOP further . . . well, not right exactly, more like into crazytown.

    The GOP has no agenda, no genuinely held beliefs beyond Rich=Good and Obama=Evil. So who sets the agenda? The loudest and craziest people in the room.

    I always love the stories where the slick guy in the expensive suit thinks he’s conning the goobers and it turns out the goobers are playing him. I for one welcome your new imbecile overlords.

  3. Terrye says:

    I doubt this. I know a lot of people who like Sarah Palin, but as much as they like her, they dislike Obama even more. I think this about putting pressure on people, in the end these folks are as likely to bolt the Republican party as the cry baby liberals are to bolt the Democratic party. Not happening.

  4. anjin-san says:

    > they dislike Obama even more

    I know people who can read at the college lever really piss me off. Hear, hear!

  5. Weren’t people saying the same stuff about Hillary Clinton, that they wouldn’t vote for Obama because Hillary dropped?

    Yeah. How long did that last again?

  6. Kylopod says:

    This is the sort of poll I tend to discount. It’s similar to ones conducted in 2000 suggesting that McCain voters wouldn’t support Bush, and ones conducted in 2008 suggesting that Hillary voters wouldn’t support Obama. In both cases, they came around. Crybabies usually do.

    I see that the Rasm. article makes that very point:

    “Typically, voters who say they will abandon the party if their nominee doesn’t win eventually support the nominee. For example, during the 2008 Democratic Primary season, a fairly sizable number of Hillary Clinton supporters said they wouldn’t support Barack Obama if he won the nomination. But, given a choice between Obama and McCain, those voters came around and supported the Democratic nominee.”

  7. Kylopod says:

    Adding to that, I admit I was mulling over the possibility of voting for McCain if Hillary would win the nomination, because I was so sick and tired of her behavior during the primaries. At that point, McCain seemed more “presidential” to me than Hillary, even though I disagreed with him on more issues. In retrospect, I doubt I would have carried through with my threat.

  8. Patrick T. McGuire says:

    “The GOP has no agenda, no genuinely held beliefs beyond Rich=Good and Obama=Evil.”

    And yet they staged the largest takeover of the House since the 1930’s, barely two years after the entire party was being written off as dead, with the assistance of the Tea Party.

    “Of course, it’s probable that most of these Palin supporters will vote Republican no matter what happens to her largely because of their desire to beat Obama. ”

    Don’t count on this too much because one of the driving factors behind the Tea Party is their general disgust at having to choose between Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum every time there is an election.

  9. wr says:

    The Tea Party will never go for Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum. For them, the only candidate is Tweedle Dumbest.

  10. And yet they staged the largest takeover of the House since the 1930′s, barely two years after the entire party was being written off as dead, with the assistance of the Tea Party.

    Don’t give too much credit to the GOP there. American politics are Shitty Party A and Shitty Party B. Shitty Party B was in charge when the population was pissed, so they went to Shitty Party A because they refuse to vote for Less Shitty Party C, D or E.

  11. Gustopher says:

    Wow, what a thoroughly unappealing photo of her. She looks tired and old — I’m tired and old, and I can recognize that!

    Further evidence of OutsideTheBeltway’s hatred of Palin, choosing the worst photos of her.

    And Palin’s supporters will mostly come around, and those that don’t will only vote third-party if there is a compellingly insane candidate.

  12. michael reynolds says:

    Patrick:

    I keep asking people here what the GOP’s agenda is. Care to take a crack at it? Nobody else wants to.

  13. tom p says:

    Coooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  14. MM says:

    Much like all of the Hillary Clinton voters would stay home/vote McCain/write in Clinton, this is utterly meaningless. It’s the same empty threats that the Clinton supporters were using to try to strongarm their candidate of choice into a win.

    If Palin were to lose a competitive primary, they would all wail and gnash their teeth right up until the moment they vote, in which case they will vote for the person with the R after his name.

  15. joe_heathen says:

    All of which goes to demonstrate how marginalized and irrelevant the Palintard and her fellow travelers are. There’s a whole lot less of them, to which Joe Miller, Christine O’Donnell, and Sharron Angle owe a great debt. Literally and figuratively.

  16. anjin-san says:

    > Much like all of the Hillary Clinton voters would stay home/vote McCain/write in Clinton, this is utterly meaningless

    Not so sure about that. Clinton’s supporters tended to be smart people attracted to her intelligence and work ethic. In Palin’s case, the forces of attraction are somewhat different…

  17. TG Chicago says:

    One potential distinction between Hillary and Sarah: When Clinton lost the nomination, she was gracious and supported the nominee who defeated her. If Palin runs and loses the nomination, I see little in her history to suggest that she would be gracious in defeat.

  18. Kylopod says:

    @TG Chicago

    I kind of disagree. Hillary stuck in the race long after Obama had acquired a far bigger delegate lead than she could possibly have caught up to, and in a quixotic attempt to get the superdelegates to select her against the will of the voters, she all but implied that the race had been stolen from her (using a highly disingenuous set of arguments). She did eventually concede, and by convention time she had come to support the Obama ticket without hedging. It’s possible Palin might be worse and never come around to support the GOP ticket if she runs for the nomination and loses. Nevertheless, Hillary’s exit from the 2008 race was not what I would ever call gracious.

  19. Axel Edgren says:

    Talk is cheap.

  20. IP727 says:

    michael reynolds says:
    Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 18:27
    Patrick:

    I keep asking people here what the GOP’s agenda is. Care to take a crack at it? Nobody else wants to.

    The agenda has always been to slow down then stop all of the socialist crap you and your pavlovian lap dogs have inflicted on the republic for the last 75 years.

  21. And replace it with what, imperialistic crap? That’s what our defence spending has said.

  22. anjin-san says:

    > And yet they staged the largest takeover of the House since the 1930′s, barely two years after the entire party was being written off as dead, with the assistance of the Tea Party.

    And Obama’s numbers are spiking, barely two months after the right wrote him off for dead.

    Your point?

  23. michael reynolds says:

    IP:

    In other words: you got nothing. That’s not an agenda, it’s a snarl.

  24. IP727 says:

    IP:

    In other words: you got nothing. That’s not an agenda, it’s a snarl

    Piss poor comeback, because your socialist crap is failing world wide.
    A dying gasp of the neo marxist is a welcome sound.

  25. IP727 says:

    How sweet it may be

  26. john personna says:

    What’s amatter IP, the American flag isn’t good enough for you?

  27. IP727 says:

    john personna says:
    Monday, January 31, 2011 at 11:29
    What’s amatter IP, the American flag isn’t good enough for you?

    With the anarchists running the asylum, it’s apropos.

  28. Franklin says:

    A Palin-Free February can’t come soon enough around here.

  29. mantis says:

    With the anarchists running the asylum, it’s apropos.

    The anarchists are still allowing you internet access at the asylum, so it can’t be all bad. I wonder how you type with a straightjacket on, though.

  30. An Interested Party says:

    “The agenda has always been to slow down then stop all of the socialist crap you and your pavlovian lap dogs have inflicted on the republic for the last 75 years.”

    Oh, you mean like Social Security? Medicare? While there are some Republicans who might be against these things, many more wouldn’t dare try to stop this “socialist crap”…unless of course, they didn’t want to get reelected…sorry to let you in on the big secret, sweetie, but for the most part, the GOP has been coopted into the “socialsit crap” and won’t be abandoning it anytime soon…

    “A dying gasp of the neo marxist is a welcome sound.”

    But not as amusing as the delusional rants of the conservative freedom fighter…