Here are the results of the Ames Straw Poll, and I have to say, for $2 million dollars or so and against practically no competition, I’d say Mitt Romney didn’t have the kind of victory he sought.
1. Mitt Romney 4,516 31.6%
2. Mike Huckabee 2,587 18.1%
3. Sam Brownback 2,192 15.3%
4. Tom Tancredo 1,960 13.7%
5. Ron Paul 1,305 9.1%
6. Tommy Thompson 1,039 7.3%
7. Fred Thompson 203 1.4%
8. Rudy Giuliani 183 1.3%
9. Duncan Hunter 174 1.2%
10. John McCain 101 0.7%
11. John Cox 41 0.3%
Quick thoughts here. Romney paid two million dollars for 4,600 or so supporters; that’s a little pathetic. Huckabee ended up coming out of this looking the best. Tommy Thompson said he needed to be in first place to continue. I’m expecting the press conference in Madison any minute now. Frankly, Duncan Hunter couldn’t even beat guys who weren’t competing in Ames, so he might want to consider taking a hike as well.
And I think we got John Cox those 41 votes by showing his music video.
UPDATE: Oh, and there were major voting machine problems. Thank you, Diebold!
10 Responses to “Straw Poll: Romney Falls Flat, Huckabee Rising, Bye-Bye Tommy”
The numbers I hear of Romney’s wild spending in Iowa was closer to $5 million.
What ISF is forgetting is that Romney was running hard against two top tier candidates that gave up on the straw poll, I want to say over a month ago but I am not sure about that.
[...] Right’s Field has a post. [...]
[...] Right’s Field has a post. [...]
It should be noted that the overall participation in the Straw Poll was down 41% from 1999, another sign of the weakness of the Republican field.
Wow–Cox got 40 more votes than I expected! But in all seriousness, I think Huckabee will steal a lot of Romney’s headlines with his second place finish. Which hopefully means that Paul and I will get to write more about our favorite Republican contender.
[...] Straw Poll: Romney Falls Flat, Huckabee Rising, Bye-Bye Tommy [...]
Woohoo, Mike’s gaining some ground! People are really beginning to see he’s the real deal and I believe he has potential to go all the way . . . solid ideas and an incredibly accurate perspective on the issues, no negative campaigning, good leader and likeable. He connects with people and a lot of people want him President if he could just get some money behind him.
Something to say?
You call winning by the largest margin in Ames Straw poll history is falling flat? Charlie Cook on MSNBC today identified the margin to meet for Romney was 25%, which happens to be where he has been polling in Iowa. He exceeded the expectation with a win at 31.5%.
Kudos to Mike Huckabee, I was also pleased with his second place win. Jeers to Guilani and McCain, who knew when they annoucned there was no way they could beat the Mitt Machine and didn’t have enough money or courage to compete.
Congratulations to Romney who earned the win! Congratulations to Huckabee who is well deserved at number 2 ahead of Brownback.
Left by I support families
August 11, 2007 at 11:32pm