Pickens picks Romney
Published April 17th, 2007 in Straw polls. 
Mitt Romney tonight won the Pickens County straw poll. Duncan Hunter, who won in Anderson County earlier tonight, pulled a close second.
The numbers are:
Romney - 16
Hunter - 14
Rudy - 13
Mccain - 10
F thompson - 9
Brownback - 9
I notice there are no qualifiers this time for Duncan Hunter’s spectacular performance. After a string of good straw poll showings on a shoestring budget, there is only one explanation: REAL conservatives sell in the Upstate!
What state is Anderson County located?
Anderson is in the upstate of South Carolina. The only reason Duncan Hunter won in Anderson is because he was there, and I worked the phones for hours trying to drum up support. Most of the voters had never heard of him until yesterday.
He is a good man, but I think he will be an also ran. He can’t win the money race. I will say that most of the people who voted for Duncan Hunter, were Romney supporters that flipped to Hunter.
The bigger story of the night was how bad Giuliani and McCain did. Both got less than 10 votes out of the 131 votes.
If Hunter gets out of the race, who will get his votes? My bet right now is Romney.
“I will say that most of the people who voted for Duncan Hunter, were Romney supporters that flipped to Hunter.”
The biggest threat to the Romney campaign right now is the momentum that Duncan Hunter’s campaign is experiencing in the Upstate. Many “Romney supporters” in this state are going to “flip” when they see a man in front of them that shares their conservative principles and has shared them throughout 20 plus years in Congress while Romney was producing liberal sound bytes to get elected in Massachusetts.
Neither Guiliani’s nor McCain’s performance is a big story. Neither one of them has ever had a chance at winning the South Carolina Republican Primary. The biggest story is that wherever Duncan Hunter speaks, Romney’s support wavers. If it were not for Duncan Hunter, Romney would have this state in the bag. This is why his supporters are trying to minimize Hunter’s candidacy.
Not true RW. In Charleston where Hunter spoke Romney was heads above everyone. Hunter was the only candidate there, so he naturally got a lot of votes.
Earl,
You forget to mention that the Charlestonians voted BEFORE they heard Hunter speak. As I understand, a point of order was called to delay the voting, but to no avail. Hunter still maintains his impressive record in polls where the delegates are able hear him speak prior to voting.
Not to mention that Charlestonians tend to be more liberal!
I guess you guys were NOT there in Charleston because SAM BROWNBACK was there. He got his repsectable tie for fourth, beating Duncan Hunter by almost 2-1 (21 -11), and the Brownback campaign keeps going and moving up….. Those who. like Hunter like Brwonback and vice versa. The question is who is best? I like Hunter but I choose Brownback - so willmany South Carolina Republicans as tehy turn their attention to the race. Precinct and County Convention turnout is down.