House Speaker Paul Ryan’s 68-point victory over Republican challenger Paul Nehlen in Wisconsin’s first district Republican primary on Tuesday tracked closely with Washington Free Beacon polling of the race, further cementing the leading conservative publication’s track record of electoral predictions, an analysis shows.
A Free Beacon poll in May showed Ryan leading by 73 points with about 13 percent of likely primary voters undecided. There was little movement in the ensuing months; Ryan prevailed by a margin of 84-16 on Tuesday evening.
The win dealt a blow to anti-establishment forces in the Republican Party that had rallied behind Nehlen, who recently said that the United States should consider deporting all of the more than 3 million Muslims living in the country.
The final results of Tuesday’s contest shows that Free Beacon’s polling operation was far more accurate than internal Nehlen campaign surveys promoted by anti-Ryan news organizations.
Frequent allusions to Ryan’s vulnerability and poor standing among voters in his southeastern Wisconsin district turned out to be unfounded, confirming the Free Beacon’s findings of high favorability for Ryan among his Republican constituents.
Free Beacon polls continue to gauge the mood of the U.S. electorate with considerable accuracy despite skepticism from some in the mainstream press.
Other surveys have tracked closely with margins of victory in the Democratic presidential caucuses in Colorado and Nevada and the Republican presidential primary in Wisconsin.