Breaking News: A Ron Paul surge in Nevada

Boy, oh, boy! Hidden behind all the hoopla, headlines and the Nevada caucus victories of Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton is one little-noticed but stunning political development and number:

Ron Paul, the one-time Libertarian candidate and 10-term Republican congressman from Texas, was in second place. That's right, Second Place. The 72-year-old ob-gyn who's always on the end of the line at GOP debates or barred altogether, was running ahead of John McCain, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, in fact, ahead of....

all other Republicans except Romney, who easily captured his second state in a week after Michigan.

Now, Romney and Paul were basically the only Republicans who actively campaigned and advertised in the desert state. But a win is a win. And second place is second place. When Romney won Wyoming a couple of weeks ago, Paul won zero there.

In Iowa, Paul also beat Giuliani and he topped Thompson in New Hampshire, where Paul was excluded from the Fox News debate, which only energized his fervent followers. His jump in GOP election standings comes despite recent reports about a long series of newsletters from the 1990s carrying Paul's name and numerous racist and anti-Semitic remarks. Paul has denied writing them and denounced their contents.

Thanks to those passionate and tireless supporters, Paul, the only Republican to oppose the Iraq war and favor significant dismantling of the federal government, won about 10% of the vote in Iowa and 8% in New Hampshire, coming in just behind the former New York mayor in the Granite state.

But in Nevada today with a poor Republican turnout of less than half the Democrats (just under 45,000 vs 115,000) and with 99.7% of the precincts reporting, Romney had 22,644 votes, or 51%. Paul had about a quarter of that, 14%, or 6,084 votes.

Paul built a slow steady lead of about 400 votes over the veteran Arizona senator's 5,648 total.

Huckabee sneaked past Thompson into fourth place with 8%, or 3,613 votes, a tiny vote lead over the former Tennessee senator, who had 3,518. Both had 8%. Giuliani, who's counting on a late-state surge to salvage his one-time now-faded national front-runner status, had only 4% of the Nevada Republican vote with 1,910 ballots. And California's retiring Congressman Duncan Hunter was last again with 2% or 890 votes.

Now, of course, comes tonight's South Carolina primary vote results where Paul needs to be a bit more realistic perhaps. He's got three campaign offices there and has advertised and campaigned actively. But McCain is well-known there, has been ahead in polls, relying heavily on his strong support in the state's large active and retired military population.

And, as in Iowa where he won the caucuses, Huckabee is counting on another large turnout among South Carolina Christian evangelicals. Polls showed the Baptist preacher narrowing McCain's lead in recent days and Thompson, the former senator who's got the most riding on a strong South Carolina showing to invigorate his sagging campaign, also gaining some.

It was reported to be snowing heavily in the state's Piedmont region, where the evangelicals are concentrated, and that could depress turnout, while McCain's coastal territory was getting some cold rain. Now, whose crowd gets more depressed? And can Thompson make a strong enough showing to stay in the race? He planned to return home to ponder the future with no campaign activities planned for coming days.

The results tonight will show whether Ron Paul's fine morning and afternoon turn into a nice all-around day or not. Either way, he was likely the top GOP fundraiser in the fourth quarter, raising nearly $20 million, and his website reports gathering in another $1.34 million so far this month. So while Giuliani stopped paying his top staff this month, Paul is likely to linger long.

Paul's crowd plans another "money bomb" on Monday when thousands will deliver new donations on the same day. One previous time they did this, the Paul campaign set a new one-day online record of $6 million.

--Andrew Malcolm

Comments

[Tracker]

Thanks Andrew. But you forgot to link to the money bomb site: http://www.freeatlast2008.com/

[Marta]

Yaaaay. We did it! No thanks to the LA Times and the rest of the plutocracy!
Yaaay!

[Andrew from FL]

Thanks for the great article!

And Paul may have advertised more than anyone but Romney, but he started off at a great disadvantage being the obscure figure he is. I doubt he even leveled the playing field when all was said and done.

[Manual Labor]

Sorry Paulies. Second in Nevada doesn't help. When are you going to quit wasting your money and pack it in? Personally. I'm sick of hearing, "The media is censoring Ron Paul!" No. There is no conspiracy. No media is "afraid" of him. He's just not newsworthy. His policies would be a disaster.

[Justin Schafer]

Dr. Paul is gaining momentum and we still have a long ways to go. People are waking up by the droves. America is sick, and Dr. No is our cure.

[Pete]

This is great!

Second place despite the mainstream-media blackout!

Go Ron Paul!

Swiss Friends of Ron Paul:
http://switzerland4ronpaul.blogspot.com/

[lastnymleft]

There IS 'hope for America', and his name is Dr Ron Paul.

Let's just hope that it's not too late for this country, and enough people wake up in time.

Thanks for the article - again - Mr Malcolm.

[JimS]

RON PAUL 2008!!

This made my day, week, year even :)

Now we MUST push harder...We must get some Press...GO RON GO!!!

[Lars]

It seems to me that some of the candidates will drop out sooner rather than later and the one candidate standing for a very long time will be Ron Paul. It will be interesting!

If you want to make sure your future articles get noticed by the large group of Ron Paul followers and other people interested in the Ron Paul message you yourself can add a link to your future articles at www.WhatTheySayAboutRonPaul.com.

[corey]

run ronny run

[Doug Jobes]

The New York Times still doesn't even show Paul on its Primary Season Election Results page: http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/results/index.html . The NYT needs to wake up.

[TrueJustice]

This was a great day for Dr. Paul. This morning I was at the NJ Straw Poll where he won with 62% of the vote. Then he came in second in Nevada. He is slowly building his strength like a snowball rolling down a mountain.

[Scott Zambernardi]

You guys give a lot of positive articles for Ron Paul unlike most media outlets and for that I thank you.

[Dylan]

You state: "But in Nevada today with a poor Republican turnout of less than half the Democrats and with 98% of the precincts reporting, Romney had 22,390 votes, or 51%. Paul had about a quarter of that, 13%, or 5,802 votes."

These are real results:

Clinton 5,326 51% 12
Obama 4,739 45% 13
Edwards 394 4% 0
Uncommitted 31 0% 0
Kucinich 5 0% 0
Richardson 0 0% 0

Dem Total = 10495(98% reporting)

Romney 22,629 51% 18
Paul 6,077 14% 4
McCain 5,641 13% 4
Huckabee 3,607 8% 2
Thompson 3,518 8% 2
Giuliani 1,907 4% 1
Hunter 890 2% 0
Tancredo 0 0%

Republican total = 44260 (99% reporting)

Clearly showing a HUGE republican turnout of 4x that of the democrats.

Ron Paul vs Hillary vs Barrack

Paul 6,077
Clinton 5,326
Obama 4,739

This is the real story!!

(Sorry, Dylan, you're misinformed. The state reported about 115,000 Democrats caucusing while the GOP votes with 99.97 of the precincts reporting totaled almost 45,000, which is indeed a poor showing vs the Democrats.)

[Doug D]

I guess it just goes to show, if Fox News or anyone else wants to hold a debate with the top five Republican candidates, they will have to include Ron Paul and leave out Giuliani. Ron Paul is in the top 4 in actual votes received so far, first in 4th quarter cash, and first in grassroots volunteer activism.

Ron Paul actually received a lot of votes in Wyoming, but the way their county conventions are organized, only the winner gets a delegate. In some Wyoming counties, Paul earned up to 45% of the vote.

[Beth]

Andrew, thanks for writing this blog about Ron!

Beth

[andrew]

nice to see some decent coverage of the ron paul win.

[Tim]

Mr. Malcolm,

Great journalism!

You are the only one I can depend on to give an accurate and unbiased account of the ongoing primaries.

Keep up the good work. And thanks for being the best.

[muad'dib]

UH OH! You can literally and I mean LITERALLY see what this is doing to the election. Ron Paul comes from out of nowhere and snatches 2nd in a primary. There is a toltal media blackout right now on RP and yet he continues to have better and better showings. That tells me one thing, the west side of this country actually thinks for themselves and all the other candidates just puckered up bigtime!
Watch everyone try and skim over this issue as the day progresses....hahaha

[Clayton]

Thank you for your excellent journalism.

[Paulunteer]

Thanks for the great coverage. The L.A. TImes is continuing to show great leadership in covering the best suppressed story in the country - the rising tide of political support for Ron Paul for President, a true Constitutionalist!

Go Ron Paul!
Go Andrew Malcolm!
Go L.A. Times (for now)!

[Evan Martin]

The six million wasn't an "online" fundraising record, it was an all-around fund-raising record: No politician has ever raised that much in a single day.
The next donation is in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King.

(Glad you added politician because Jerry Lewis' Telethon would argue about you breaking the all-time one day record.)

[Mark Rauterkus]

This is a surge that I can live with -- a Ron Paul surge. That is a surge for peace and freedom.

Let's hope that Romney and the others flame out soon. Otherwise, we are all toast.

Ron Paul won't flame out. Likewise, the US CONSTITUTION won't flame out either.

[Chip`]

Thanks for pointing out that Paul came in second in Nevada....and beat Giuliani once AGAIN.

The first time I heard Paul speak at the debate Paul has been a real candidate to me! Maybe others will get a clue now.

[Bill in Montgomery ....]

If Ron Paul "shocks the world" and wins this election - or, more likely, influences future candidates who laregely echo Dr. Paul's speeches - some kind of freedom medal needs to go to this blog, the only one that has noticed the eye-opening results of this longest-of-longshots and a true grassroots campaign.

It takes a little courage to go against the grain, and risk ridicule, to pay attention to someone who so many ridicule.

Plus, it IS a story - which Andrew (almost alone) has picked up on.

So thanks for pointing out what so many in your field have not.

Bill in Montgomery