The results from the Conservative Political Action Conference are in. Respondents were asked to name their first and second choices. Rudy Giuliani captured the most combined #1 and #2 votes; Mitt Romney got the most #1 votes, no doubt helped by the hundreds of college students he bussed in and underwrote. John McCain did not attend the conference, which probably explains his middling showing. About 1,700 ballots were cast. Here are the results, arranged in descending order of the combined total.
CANDIDATE–Combined Total–(First Choice)–[Second Choice]
Giuliani 34% (17%) [16%]
Romney 30% (21%) [9%]
Gingrich 30% (14%) [16%]
Brownback 24% (15%) [8%]
McCain 20% (12%) [8%]
Tancredo 9% (< 5%) [5%]
Huckabee 8% (< 5%) [6%]
Hunter 7% (< 5%) [5%]
Paul 6% (< 5%) [< 5%]
Gilmore 6% (< 5%) [< 5%]
Apparently, Romney was the only candidate to import — and pay the expenses of — his voters.
Thanks to the support of hundreds of college students, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the CPAC straw poll…. 1,705 votes were cast, many of them by College Republicans whose registration and in some cases travel and lodging was footed by Romney’s camp.
Given their all-out effort — one couldn’t walk more than a few feet in the hotel the past few days without being solicited by a youthful Romney volunteer — and poor showing in the Spartanburg, SC poll Thursday, Team Mitt had to win this vote. Anything less than a first-place finish would have been a blow, particularly if that loss had come to Giuliani, who appeared to have little grassroots presence at the gathering…. Giuliani’s backers swore they didn’t spend a dime to GOTV.
One assumes that a large number of Romney’s #1 votes came from his imported minions; that, after all, was the point of importing them. His poor showing on the #2 spot strikes me as noteworthy.
Rudy Giuliani is clearly the Republican frontrunner at this point, and he’s starting to put considerable distance between himself and his rivals in real polls.
The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Giuliani leading McCain 44 percent to 21 percent, with former House speaker Newt Gingrich at 15 percent and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney at 4 percent. A month ago, Giuliani’s lead was much narrower: 34 percent to 27 percent. Without Gingrich in the field, the most recent poll showed Giuliani’s margin over McCain was 53 percent to 23 percent.
Other recent polls are similarly sunny for Rudy. If Giuliani can win the combined total at CPAC without trying all that hard, and he can open up >20% leads in real polls, it’s getting hard to see how he doesn’t walk away with this thing — unless he stumbles, which is certainly possible, since he’s a bit of a loose cannon.
So who is Giuliani’s running mate?
You guys just can’t stand it can ya?
you got any evidence to the contrary?
Giuliani will not be the Republican nominee.
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He’s ahead now because of his wide name recognition combined with the fact that most Republican voters do not know his positions on social issues. The conservatives will eventually settle on a candidate as the possibilities become better-known, and Giuliani will be attacked heavily.
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It’s interesting that you say that it’s hard to see how he doesn’t run away with this — I find it extremely difficult to see how he has any chance when the rubber hits the road in the weeks before the Republican primaries.
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I think this will be just one of those cases that we look back sometime in ’09 and are amazed how well Rudy was polling early on, kind of like Lieberman in ’03.
Check it out here. The Coultergeist features in the last minute or so, during a touching table-turning scene.