Newsmax has been conducting an online poll for the past several months (pretty much since the election) asking for opinions on Sarah Palin. The poll was advertised via google ads on pretty much every conservative website you can imagine and they claim to have have received over half a million responses. The give the results as follows [3]:
- What is your opinion of Sarah Palin? Favorable: 83 percent Unfavorable: 17 percent
- Do you believe Sarah Palin as a running mate helped or hurt John McCain? Helped: 80 percent Hurt: 20 percent
- In the election between McCain-Palin and Obama-Biden, who did you vote for? McCain-Palin: 81 percent Obama-Biden: 16 percent Other: 3 percent
- Would you support Sarah Palin as the Republican nominee for president in 2012? Yes: 78 percent No: 22 percent
First (and obviously) this isn't exactly a scientific survey. Again, it was promoted on conservative websites, and in order to have your responses logged, you had to give your email address and signup for Newsmax's newsletter, (which was their whole point). But it is interesting.
First, an 83% favorable rating and a 78% support level for the nomination is nothing to sneeze at. Of course that doesn't mean these folks wouldn't also "support" someone else for the nomination, but it is impressive, especially when you consider the universal bad press she's received...and the knives she's had to catch from many Republicans as well.
Maybe what's more important about this is the group of people that it probably best represents. That being conservatives who tend to get most of their information online and who visit conservatives blogs and websites...which I think is pretty safe to say represents a great portion of the core of the party's activists.
Which means Newsmax can pretty much count on Sarah renting their email list in the future.
