Ron Paul Dominates Patch Polls

If there's one thing that our week-long Patch Polls proved, it's that Ron Paul supporters know how to take over a poll.

Over the past week, we asked Patch readers which GOP candidate they thought was the strongest on five key issues: the economy, national security, immigration, health care and education.

Paul finished first by a wide margin in all five daily polls, followed most closely by Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman.

On Monday, we asked about the economy. Of the 1,113 people who voted, 70 percent chose Paul, 18 percent Romney, 6 percent Huntsman, and 1 percent each for Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry.

Tuesday's question was national security. Out of 514 votes, Paul received 83 percent, Huntsman 5 percent, and Gingrich and Romney 2 percent apiece. Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Perry and other received 1 percent each.

On immigration, 64 people voted – 40 percent for Paul, 25 percent for Romney, 10 percent for Perry, 7 percent for Bachmann, 6 percent for other, 4 percent for Gingrich, 3 percent for Santorum, and 1 percent for Huntsman.

Sixty-five people voted in our health care poll. Of those, 65 percent chose Paul, 12 percent Romney, 10 percent other, 4 percent apiece for Gingrich and Huntsman, 3 percent Perry, and 1 percent each for Bachmann and Santorum.

On our final question, education, 86 votes were cast. Forty-five percent chose Paul, 30 percent Huntsman, 9 percent other, 4 percent each for Romney and Gingrich, 3 percent Perry, and 1 percent Bachmann.

Many of the other votes were for Buddy Roemer, whose name was not included in our polls.