Paul backers release Iowa poll, hype caucus odds

A super PAC supporting Ron Paul is brandishing new polling data to argue that their candidate is a frontrunner in the Iowa caucuses.

A survey commissioned by Revolution PAC and conducted by the automated polling firm TeleResearch found Paul draws 22 percent support among Iowa Republicans. That’s the same vote share as Herman Cain and 1 percentage point more than Newt Gingrich, who came in at 21 percent.


Mitt Romney was in third place among Republicans, with 17 percent, followed by Michele Bachmann at 7 percent, Rick Perry at 6 percent, Rick Santorum with 4 percent and Jon Huntsman with 1 percent.

The big grains of salt here are the usual ones: It’s not a disinterested poll, it’s an out-of-state firm, it’s a robo-dialed survey and the Iowa caucuses are notoriously difficult to poll. Numbers like these are released when campaign groups want to use them to drive coverage, and Paul supporters are enthusiastic about the idea that Iowa may be a legitimate target for their candidate.

The poll is also intended to drive a point that Paul supporters have been making for some time: disgruntled non-Republicans could at least theoretically end up caucusing for a candidate like Paul.

Paul actually leads Iowa in a sample of poll respondents that included both likely Republican caucus attendees and “disaffected Democrats and independent voters who indicated they will not vote to reelect President Obama and intend to vote in [the] 2012 Republican caucus.”

In that sample – which includes 678 Republicans and 168 non-Republicans – Paul takes 25 percent of the vote, versus 21 percent for Gingrich, 20 percent for Cain and 15 percent for Romney.

More info on the TeleResearch numbers is here, from Revolution PAC, with more detail promised later today.