With all eyes on Iowa as the state’s key caucuses are slated to begin in two weeks’ time, Congressman Ron Paul is seeing continuing success in the polls.
The results of the latest survey from Public Policy Polling has the libertarian-learning GOP hopeful neck and neck with former-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. In the data released on Tuesday, Paul’s favoritism in the state of Iowa is apparent in 21 percent of likely Republican voters. Former frontrunners Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann both trail the Texas congressman, coming in at 16 percent and 11 percent, respectively. The surge in support for Paul comes after the candidate has unleashed on Gingrich with a series of campaign ads gone viral that attack the former speaker for his “serial hypocrisy” and flippant flip-flopping. Public Policy Polling reports that Gingrich saw a drop of 5 percentage points in support in the week leading up to the survey alone.Earlier this month, Paul acknowledged his surge in support to CNN, telling the network, “I think we continue to do what we’re doing. We’ve had the flavors of the month up and down so far in this campaign. I’d like to think of myself as the flavor of the decade.”In a project carried out last week by The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, the organization went over 20 million tweets dealing with the race for the White House in 2012 and also concluded that Paul is the candidate most favored by Republican voters — and Democrats.Despite this surge, the mainstream media is still hesitant to discuss the dramatic rise in popularity for Paul. Major news networks are still largely shrugging the congressman off as a fringe candidate, even as the popularity for the mainstream runners wanes in the election cycle, but with Paul being the only GOP hopeful to come out against the National Defense Authorization Act, a dangerous legislation days away from being signed into law by President Obama and therefore allowing the indefinite detention and torture of American citizens, the candidate should expect a further surge in popularity of Americans favoring constitutional rights.“This is a giant step – this should be the biggest news going right now – literally legalizing martial law,” Paul told radio host Alex Jones this week. “This is big – this step where they can literally arrest American citizens and put them away without trial….is arrogant and bold and dangerous.”