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POLITICS

6% of GOP Voters Ready to Vote Third Party If Their Favorite Isn’t The Nominee

Texas Congressman Ron Paul at a debate Saturday night in New Hampshire refused to rule out a third party run for the presidency if he fails to win the Republican nomination. But there’s minimal support for a third party candidate among Republican voters even if their favorite candidate is not the nominee.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that six percent (6%) of Likely Republican Primary voters nationwide say they would vote for a third party candidate if the candidate they’re backing for the GOP nomination comes up short. Slightly more (8%) say they would vote for President Obama if that was the case. But 78% of these GOP voters plan to vote for the Republican candidate no matter what. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The national survey of 1,000 Likely Republican Primary Voters was conducted on January 4, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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