Originally published at: https://freekeene.com/2020/08/25/scientific-poll-over-25-of-undeclared-voters-choose-nobody-in-nh-republican-primary-for-governor-candidates-to-debate-friday-8-28/
Given the pollsters regularly ignore liberty-minded candidates like libertarians, Free Keene hired polling firm Robocent to conduct the only fairly-written scientific poll of both Republican and Undeclared voters, thus far. We purchased a randomly selected list of landlines for actual New Hampshire voters: 25,000 Republicans and 25,000 Undeclareds. In order to have been included in our phone list, the individuals must have voted at least once since 2016. Democrats were not polled as they cannot vote in the Republican primary.
The poll consisted of three questions, the first being a question about which candidate the respondent is supporting for NH governor. Here is the exact copy as delivered over the phone poll:
In the republican primary for New Hampshire governor there are three candidates. Which would you want to have as your governor? Press one for Karen Testerman Press two for Chris Sununu Or press three for Nobody.
525 Undeclared voters took the poll, which by the way is a larger sample size than the unfair poll by St. Anselm. Of the 525 respondents, 132 of them (25.14%) chose Nobody! 24 (4.57%) chose Karen Testerman and 369 (70.28%) selected incumbent Chris Sununu.
The responses from registered Republicans were different, however. More of them responded to the poll than the Undeclareds, with 694 respondents from the Republican list. Of those, 58 (8.36%) chose Nobody, 40 (5.76%) chose Karen Testerman, and 596 (85.88%) chose Chris Sununu.In total, 1219 New Hampshire voters participated in this poll question. 190 (15.59%) chose Nobody, 64 (5.25%) chose Karen Testerman, and 965 (79.16%) chose Chris Sununu.
Nobody’s results are amazing considering he’s had near-zero media coverage for this primary. He had more media for his mayoral run in Keene last year. He’s also spent and raised next to nothing thus far on his campaign. That said, if the media had bothered to pay attention to Sununu’s two challengers, perhaps they would have fared better against the tyrant king incumbent. According to the rest of the poll, both Undeclared and Republican voters were largely unaware of Nobody and Testermans’ respective campaigns. Here is the copy for the second and third questions of the poll:
Prior to this poll, were you aware that Karen Testerman would be a choice on the republican primary ballot on September 8th? Press one if you were aware of Karen’s campaign. Press two if you were not aware. Prior to this poll, were you aware that Nobody would be a choice on the republican primary ballot on September 8th? Press one if you were aware of Nobody’s campaign. Press two if you were not aware.
The results here were similar between the Undeclared and Republican respondents. In the Undeclared results, 474 respondents answered the second question about whether they were aware of Karen Testerman’s campaign before the poll. Only 133 (28.06%) of Undeclared voters were aware of her campaign. 638 Republicans answered the Testerman awareness question and 206 (32.29%) of them were aware of her campaign. Similarly, in the Undeclared results the number of respondents had dropped to 441 by the time the third question was asked, the one about whether they were aware of Nobody’s campaign before the poll. Just 123 (27.89%) of the Undeclared voters indicated they had. Republican respondents had dropped to 598 by the time they reached the Nobody awareness question and of them, 187 (31.27%) indicated they had heard of Nobody’s campaign. The numbers are clear, the bulk of voters were completely unaware of the challengers to Sununu, just two weeks prior to the September 8th state primary election.
We’re hosting a debate between the ballot qualified Republican candidates this Friday at 1pm Eastern on the LRN.FM DLive channel. An archive will be posted online later for those who are unable to watch live. Mark your calendars! So far, Karen Testerman and Nobody have agreed to debate, but Sununu has not responded to his invitation.