Today we have a massive jump in Georgia to report, Johnson is at 11% up from 5%. Nevada jumped from 2% to 5%, perhaps showing a little love from the recent campaign stops in Las Vegas and Nevada.
General Election: Clinton 41, Trump 37, Johnson 10, Stein 4 (Pew Research)
General Election: Clinton 41, Trump 39, Johnson 9, Stein 3 (Rasmussen Reports)
General Election: Clinton 39, Trump 35, Johnson 7, Stein 2 (Reuters/Ipsos)
Georgia: Trump 43, Clinton 43, Johnson 11 (FOX 5 Atlanta)
Nevada: Clinton 44, Trump 42, Johnson 5 (Suffolk University)
A pattern I’ve noticed is that Johnson polls very well in low population, libertarian friendly states. It may bode well for the Johnson-Weld camp to poll some western states that haven’t been polled. News could be dripped for weeks; a new story popping up every day or two about double digit support. Support breeds more support for third parties. There is a lot of untapped news out there for the consumption of low information voters.
Monmouth, Economist/YouGov, and Quinnipiac released a whole bunch of polls after yesterday’s polling post. It’s all good news except the Economist/YouGov poll showing a 1% drop over their last general election poll, but it’s within the margin of error and seems to be an outlier compared to other GE polls so I’m not reading too much into the drop. If one or two more show 7%, I’ll be shocked and give it more credit.
General Election: Clinton 41, Trump 35, Johnson 7, Stein 3 (Economist/YouGov)
Colorado: Clinton 41, Trump 33, Johnson 16, Stein 7 (Quinnipiac)
Iowa: Clinton 41, Trump 39, Johnson 12, Stein 3 (Quinnipiac)
Virginia: Clinton 45, Trump 34, Johnson 11, Stein 5 (Quinnipiac)
Indiana: Trump 47, Clinton 36, Johnson 10 (Monmouth – did not include Stein)
So this lot is a very good deal for Johnson. Johnson is up 1 in Colorado, up 3 in Iowa, up 2 in Virginia, and Indiana is new but looking good.
At the start of the day, our map showed Virginia at 7% – it is now marked at 11%. This is because of the order the polls rolled in, first a 9% poll and then an 11% poll later. For consistency I’m simply using the latest poll. You can find more scientific maps in places like this.
Mashable released an article showing the amount of discussion of Gary Johnson and Jill Stein on Facebook. It appears discussion reached a fever pitch on July 26 and 27 towards the end of the DNC. While dropping off a little in August, the discussion still looks substantial.
Johnson is more discussed than Stein by a wide margin. Stein is only more discussed in four states and the District of Columbia.
Discussion, of course, can be positive or negative. The tone of the discussion was not included in the article.
This redditor has made and maintained an excellent post detailing where Johnson is headed and where he has been, as well as media appearances.
Today Johnson is drumming up support in Miami before he heads out to Las Vegas tomorrow and a rally in Albuquerque on Friday. Though Florida is unlikely to flip, it should be a great place to continue to test his message on Latinos, who will be important to flipping the southwest. I’m very excited to see how New Mexico polls after the Albuquerque rally.
Johnson heads to Vermont and Maine at the end of next week. Johnson will start in the southernmost region of the state and work his way north up 95 towards a 6pm rally in Lewiston. As such, he is spending most of the day in the 1st Congressional District before just baaaaaaarely stepping into the 2nd Congressional district. I think his time would be better spent further north.
Today we have five state polls to add to the map. To the best of my knowledge these are the first serious polls in Texas and Mississippi, neither of which Johnson will make a serious contention for flipping. Stein is polling at 0 in Mississippi; perhaps they like their wifi.
Michigan: Clinton 44, Trump 33, Johnson 9, Stein 5 (Fox 2 Detroit / Mitchell)
Mississippi: Trump 52, Clinton 39, Johnson 3, Stein 0 (Magellan)
Virginia: Clinton 46, Trump 39, Johnson 9, Stein 3 (Washington Post)
Florida: Clinton 48, Trump 39, Johnson 6, Stein 1 (Monmouth)
Texas: Trump 44, Clinton 38, Johnson 6, Stein 2 (PPP (D))
General Election: Clinton 43, Trump 37, Johnson 11, Stein 4 (NBC News / SM)
In states already polled, Johnson is up 1 point in Michigan, 2 points in Virginia, and 1 point in Florida. So Johnson-Weld bats 1.000 in improving ground in all three of those states.
This general election poll, which is NBC News/SM is different than the NBC/WaPo poll used in determining the debates. Johnson performed slightly better in this one, however. Perhaps a good omen.
The #15for15 was wonderfully successful by minor party standards (realistic but perhaps mean sounding?) Indeed, even a prototypical “moneybomb” like “Fire Nancy Pelosi” earns less, although if memory serves me right #15for15 took two weeks to run and Fire Nancy Pelosi was without planning. Either way, 1.739 million (as of this writing) definitely moves the needle in the right direction.
What the author is truly curious of, however, is how July (and August!) finances look. Bill Weld recently stated that he could raise as much as 3/4 million per day. Weld has also stated and/or implied that serious finances are lined up should the campaign reach a 15% mark in polling. When campaign finances are released on August 20, we’ll see how much is in the coffers to achieve 15% – at which time the September 20 (August finances) report will hopefully deliver once large donors come around.
This is a refreshing new angle. Most previous angles of suing Johnson-Weld’s way into the debates have seemed futile and borderline frivolous. I’m excited to see how this one goes.
Americans Deserve Better PAC has released a second TV spot (in addition to a radio ad) in a two week ad-buy in Maine. The ad, entitled “Consequences,” is based heavily on sound bites from Clinton and Trump and emphasizes the consequences of their decision making. In my opinion this is an excellent precursor to a later ad that could emphasize polling numbers like this. Here’s a look at the thirty second ad:
This ad buy is the first serious attempt at securing Johnson-Weld’s first electoral vote. As we’ve previously mentioned, Maine splits their four electoral votes. Two go to the popular vote winner and one goes to the popular vote in each of the two congressional districts. As such, it’s not necessarily a 4-0 situation; it’s completely possible that two candidates split the vote 3-1 or even that three candidates split the vote 2-1-1.
Green shading represents the 2nd congressional district.
Maine’s second congressional district, which sits on the northern side of the state and is sparsely populated by New England standards, has a penchant for libertarianism. A big part of the initiative of getting Johnson-Weld into office predicates itself in picking off the easy electoral votes nationwide. The second congressional district in Maine serves as an excellent bellwether district on the possibility on how feasible the entire plan is. In other words, this ad campaign may be the first thing that tells us how general election will look in winnable states.
Each of the ads run so far has encouraged usage of the hashtag #TheAdults. As of writing this, #TheAdults has reached 319,215 users on Twitter.
According to Keyhole.co, the tweets associated with the hashtag are approximately 59% positive. The rest of the data looks fairly organic to me (50/50 male/female, wide spread of devices/platforms, tweets/retweets/replies.) The Clinton campaign has been criticized heavily for astroturfing, so organic is a refreshing change of pace this election cycle. Sharing political TV spots is a lot to ask of private users concerned of alienating friends, so there’s no disappointment here efficacy of the in the online sharing of the ad. Reading tea leaves everything looks good so far.
One possible takeaway from this ad is that it is designed to play well in Maine but not necessarily designed to play well on the Internet. It’s exactly the message Maine viewers need but lacks the sharability necessary for Internet virality. In other words, a viewer in Maine who sees this ad on TV is not going to immediately jump to their computer to find a copy to share on Facebook. I would imagine we’re 2-4 more weeks away from jucier ads that the Internet finds more “sharable.” As such, the Keyhole.co analysis that 246 users have shared it seems low at first glance but reasonable give that the Internet likes much juicer content.
Call me crazy (my wife certainly does) but I’m seeing some effectiveness based on Google Trends. We’re talking a “flip the switch” sort of jump in this graph. I look forward to the polling conducted at the end of the month. This ad brilliantly tees up later ads driving home the idea that Clinton voted to invade Iraq or that Trump…well…the way Trump’s August is going there may be need to mention his decision making by September!
It’s well documented that Johnson will need to poll 15% or higher to occupy a third podium in the first debate. So what exactly does that mean? Well, it’s not based on just any polls. There are five specific polls which are averaged together; ABC-Washington Post; CBS-New York Times; CNN-Opinion Research Corporation; Fox News; and NBC-Wall Street Journal. Johnson must be above 15% to receive an invitation to the debates.
Additionally, the Commission on Presidential debates has stated that they’ll “consider giving an inch” if a candidate is close this year, later clarifying that to mean “If someone came in and let’s say he was [polling] at 14.5 percent and the margin of error in five polls was 3 points, we are going to have to sit down and look at it, but right now that person would not be included.”
So where does Johnson stand in those five polls? They’re conducted less often than you’d think. Here’s the most recent results for each, along with the dates:
So as of right now, Johnson is at 9.8% as far as the debates are concerned. These are older polls and there’s still plenty of time before the September 26th debate.
On Friday night Gary Johnson appeared on the Greg Gutfeld show on Fox News. It was a very lighthearted interview so there’s not much substance to talk about. Linked for your viewing pleasure.
Gary Johnson News 
