Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the first presidential straw poll of the 2012 cycle, kicking off New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary election race.
Romney won with 35 percent, beating second-place finisher Ron Paul by 24 points in the WMUR-ABC News straw poll of members of the state Republican Party. In third place was former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who won 8 percent—just one point ahead of Sarah Palin, who drew 7 percent.
Because Romney has such high name recognition here and has a home in Wolfeboro, N.H., he was widely expected to win—and observers here were far more interested in who would come in second and third.
Only three candidates—Romney, Pawlenty and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum—have spent significant amounts of time on the ground in the state over the past few months. At today’s convention, Pawlenty staffed a table to promote his new book while Santorum consultant and longtime New Hampshire operative Mike Biundo had a table and worked the crowd.
Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint each received 5 percent of the vote, while pizza mogul Herman Cain took 4 percent.
The remaining names on the ballot garnered fewer votes than Cain, the tea party favorite and radio host who has already announced his exploratory committee. Santorum received 3 percent of the vote—tied with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Indiana Rep. Mike Pence and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Losing to even Donald Trump, who took 1 percent of the vote: South Dakota Sen. John Thune and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who both received no votes.
The poll is a strong showing for Romney, who drew 39 percent support in a Jan. 7 NH Journal poll of likely New Hampshire voters. Noteworthy is how far ahead he is of Pawlenty and Santorum, the other two candidates who have spent significant time in the state in the past year.
“It shows that Romney has a core of support here in the state and they are obviously part of the party structure and they came out and gave him their support today,” longtime New Hampshire Republican consultant Jim Merrill, who ran Romney’s New Hampshire PAC in 2008, told POLITICO.
Biundo, Santorum’s consultant, told POLITICO his boss wasn’t worried about the results. “It’s just a straw poll. And it’s early,” he said, emphasizing that New Hampshire voters expect engaged candidates and are often swayed by unexpected underdogs who work hard.
Romney pulled off a win even as party delegates elected a tea party candidate for state chairman over an establishment Republican hand-picked by former Gov. John Sununu, the outgoing chairman. Jack Kimball, who lost the GOP gubernatorial nomination earlier this year, beat Cheshire County GOP chairwoman Juliana Bergeron by just 19 votes.
Still, the straw poll’s collection of tea party candidates collectively finished far ahead of Beltway favorites like Daniels, Huntsman and Thune. Taken together, Paul, Palin, Bachmann, DeMint and Cain represented 31 percent of votes cast in the straw poll.
The delegates gathered here at Pinkerton Academy were clearly more enthusiastic about the chairman’s race than about the straw poll: 421 people voted in the chairman’s race, but only 273 voted in the straw poll.
The straw poll is an unusual undertaking for the New Hampshire GOP, unlike Iowa, where the late summer GOP straw poll in Ames each cycle is organized months in advance, is widely publicized and is open to a much larger pool of voters.
9 comments:
The article didn't really seem to focus on Romney as much except by how much he had won, it mentioned so many of his competitors that I was just kind of lost through out. To stay with the subject, I believe Romney won mainly due to his well known name and appearance within politics. I didn't know who majority of the people mentioned were besides him, Palin, Ron Paul, and Donald Trump. Is a "Straw Poll" basically a practice run to see who would win what?
Romney may have won the straw poll but it is still a straw poll... It is still any politicians game. Even though he won with practicly flying colors. Thou it's expected his name is known and it's home feild advantage for him. Let's see what Ron pual is going to do...
This straw poll is in all honesty a joke, in the end do we really learn anything new? Mitt Romney might have won, but as stated in the article he not only has a home there ,but he had significant "campaign" time there. So given that even if he does win in the actual presidential run; its only one state and New Hampshire at that. And as far as I know NH has a whopping FOUR electoral votes.
I don't think this is especially indicative of anything yet. It's obviously a long time before primaries, and it seems natural that people would vote for someone with strong name recognition like Romney; after all, he's run for president before. For that matter, it's clear that this vote is actually very split: 35 percent of the vote may be a lot better than anyone else, but it's far from a majority showing, and there are a million things that could happen before any of this indicates anything binding.
With this Romney chances of winning are pretty high. I have no doubt that he will probably win the election. I personaly cant bekive that Trump accually tried to run. His precentage though says it all.
This is an interesting turn for the GOP. With all the media attention Sarah Palin receives, people tend to forget about the other possible Republican candidates. Thankfully, for the party, there are other voices. And clearly some people are listening to them. Although, the importance of this poll of only 273 people will be determined at a much later date. However, it is a sign of good things to come for the Republican party. Hopefully more news like this, news that says the Republican party isn't really behind Sarah Palin for the presidency run, will become known and help remove some of the tarnish she has brought the GOP in recent years.
Romney may have a chance since the people did respond to his efforts in the Straw Poll. Even though it is just a small vote of opinion, but it could reflect a much greater opinion.
Things Romney may have been saying when picture at top of article was taken:
"So I paid $3 for a burrito the other day, and it was barely this big around!! What up with that?"
"So an O looks like this...which is the second letter in my last name."
"My Aunt Marie, bless her heart, she was the nicest lady...but that boil on her face was at least this big...and that's a conservative estimate!!"
"Sure, my face is a little fat, and I have stupid hair, but that's okay by me."
The thing which bothers me is that when someone is elected just because os their recognition in the respected area. Romney recieved the maximum number of votes. And the maximum votes were from New Hampshire, the place where he was originally from. This shows that Romney had good support. It is all about politics.
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