The Candidates
April in South Carolina means time for all of the Republican Party County Conventions. And GOP County Conventions means straw polls! A few of these straw polls have been mentioned on R4′08 in the past few days, but I wanted to give you a comprehensive look at this period in the primary season.
So far, 8 counties have had their GOP conventions, and all eight of them have included straw polls. Mitt Romney has won 6 of them (Beaufort, Newberry, Charleston, Horry, York, and Orangeburg Counties) and John McCain has won the other 2 (Florence and Greenwood Counties). The full results of each straw poll can be found below the fold.
This week alone, 18 more counties will hold their conventions, and most if not all of them will also include straw polls - giving us plenty to analyze and talk about. The counties holding conventions this week include:
Monday, April 16 (today)
Anderson, Pickens, and Georgetown Counties
Tuesday, April 17
Saluda, Edgefield, Abbevile, and Fairfield Counties
Wednesday, April 18
McCormick County
Thursday, April 19
Colleton, Lancaster, Aiken, Calhoun, and Allendale Counties
Saturday, April 21
Greenville, Spartanburg, Richland, Sumter, and Laurens County
Obviously, one straw poll from one county doesn’t mean a lot in the bigger picture, but as these polls keep rolling in we should be able to discern some sort of trends appearing in the state overall. Here’s what I’m noticing just based off of the first eight of these straw polls:
*Romney’s supposed weakness in the south is being shown to be untrue. He won 6 of the 8 polls and came in second place in the two he didn’t win (and one of those by just one vote).
*McCain is all over the map in his supposed stronghold. He finished first twice, second three times, fifth twice, and tied for last once.
*If the pattern from these polls continues, Giuliani is going to have trouble in South Carolina - he finished second once, third three times, fourth three times, and fifth once.
*Brownback scored a second place in Newberry County, and Huckabee scored a second place in York County - so they definitely have centers of support down there. However, the rest of the time both of their numbers hovered in the low single digits.
*If the voting population in general are looking to Fred or Newt as a conservative answer to “Rudy McRomney”, party officials sure aren’t. In these polls, F Thompson barely cracked double digits most of the time (around the 8-12% mark) and Gingrich stayed in 2-5% territory.
We’ll keep you updated as the results from this week’s conventions roll in!
Monday, April 9
Florence County
McCain - 49%
Romney - 22%
F Thompson - 12%
Giuliani - 10%
Huckabee - 2%
Gingrich - 2%
Keyes - 2% (yes, as in Keyes, Alan…)
Beaufort
Romney - 35%
Giuliani - 23%
Gingrich - 17%
F Thompson - 14%
McCain - 5%
Huckabee - 2%
Tancredo - 2%
All others - less than 1%
Newberry
Romney - 62%
Brownback - 26%
Hunter - 10%
Giuliani - 3%
All others - less than 1%
Friday, April 13
Charleston
Romney - 36%
McCain - 23%
Giuliani - 14%
Brownback - 9%
Hunter - 5%
Gingrich - 4%
Huckabee - 4%
F Thompson - 3%
All others - less than 1%
Saturday, April 14
Horry
Romney - 39%
McCain - 22%
F Thompson - 9%
Giuliani - 8%
Hunter - 6%
Gingrich - 4%
Huckabee - 4%
Brownback - 1%
Gilmore - 1%
All others - less than 1%
York
Romney - 40%
Huckabee - 24%
Giuliani - 11%
F Thompson - 10%
McCain - 7%
Gingrich - 3%
Brownback - 1%
Gilmore - 1%
Orangeburg
Romney - 30%
McCain - 25%
Brownback - 15%
Rice - 10%
Giuliani - 5%
Huckabee - 5%
Tancredo - 5%
All others - 0%
Greenwood
McCain - 19%
Romney - 18%
Giuliani - 18%
Hunter - 18%
F Thompson - 8%
Gingrich - 8%
Paul - 8%
Brownback - 6%
All others - 0%
April 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
These are way early polls, and straw ones at that. However, it is going to be hard to spin these away from Romney. Let’s go through the usual boilerplate list:
(1) He bought the election. In eight counties? Hundreds of votes? The entire state of South Carolina can sure be bought cheap. Where are the people complaining they didn’t get their cut?
(2) He bussed in hundreds of college students from Utah. Yeah right. A whole bunch of people nobody knows with Western or fake Southern accents descends upon the deep South in force and nobody notices?
(3) Only the “rich” vote for him. South Carolina must be one of the richest states in the Union. Either that or only rich people are active in Republican politics there.
(4) This is the heart of Romney country. I thought South Carolina was a McCain stronghold?
(5) Only Mormons vote for him. South Carolina is right smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. What are the media going to write about now?
The bottom line: This is perhaps the first really big win by Romney that can’t be easily spun away. Romney supporters have to remember that it is still months early, and these are only straw polls. However, the more snarky spins usually given to a good Romney showing cannot be applied here with any amount of credibility.
If this pro-Romney trend continues this week, it is going to shake up a few people, at least for a while.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Good points, marK. Thanks for posting.
Hava
http://mittforpresident.wordpress.com/
April 17th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
[...] all of you who read an even earlier article know that it is straw poll time in South Carolina as each county holds their county conventions [...]