SRLC: Straw Poll Results
Results of the Southern Republican Leadership Conference Straw Poll, which every candidate is trying to assure everyone that it is not at all important:
| Position | Candidate | Percentage |
| 1 | Bill Frist | 36.9 |
| 2 | Mitt Romney | 14.4 |
| 3 | George Allen | 10.3 |
| 3 | George Bush (write in) | 10.3 |
| 5 | John McCain | 4.6 |
| 6 | Mike Huckabee | 3.8 |
| 7 | Other write ins | 3.0 |
| 8 | George Pataki | 2.7 |
| 9 | Condi Rice (write in) | 2.2 |
| 10 | Sam Brownback | 1.5 |
| 11 | Rudy Giulliani | 1.1 |
| 12 | Newt Gengrich | 0.9 |
| 13 | Chuck Hagel | 0.2 |
A McCain spokesman came into the press room and issued this statement:
We are gratified at the result of a lot of hard work. The leader is focused on ’06 and our party is focused on a strong, positive vision for ’08.
— Eric Ueland, McCain Chief of Staff
A few observations:
- Even with McCain’s “write in George Bush” campaign, he garnered less than 15% of the vote, and way less than half of what Frist pulled in.
- Everyone can say that Frist “packed the vote” by bussing people in (I talked to one blogger that was bussed in by what she said was the Frist organization), but there is no way he bussed in that many people. The Frist vote shows home state advantage, but this is a staggeringly high result.
Update: The Hotline has released some interesting statistics. Among them, 82% of Frist’s votes came from Tennessee delegates with only 97 votes of his 526 votes coming from other states. And while he took 58% of the Tennessee vote, that only shows that he plays well in his home state. Unless my math is very bad, he only took 17% of the 569 non-Tennessee votes. This is the Senate Majority Leader’s standing among the party faithful. In one fell swoop the Frist landslide victory is made virtually meaningless, but don’t expect the press to mention it.
- Mitt Romney is a surprisingly high second, a tribute to the grassroots volunteers at the convention as well as the impressive speech that he made yesterday.
Update: Mitt Romney also took second in the 2nd choice of Frist voters.
- Condi did very poorly, in spite of a contingent of Draft Rice volunteers. Rumor had it that her name was originally on the ballot but that it was removed by the mysterious “they”, but even so this is a poor showing.
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Wow, excellent analysis of the Frist vote. But like you said, the press won’t notice or care. Did you see Friday’s CA story on Frist from Bart Sullivan? Claimed, without evidence, that Frist was the national favorite and front-runner. Sheesh.
Yay, Mitt!
Thanks, Mike. I missed the story (I missed most stories while at the conference) but that doesn’t surprise me. Local paper supports local boy and declares a front-runner, 966 days before the election.