Straw Poll Favors McCain, Giuliani (Virginia)

The Progress Index ^ | 4/19/07

[areafiftyone]

Southside Virginia Republicans split their support for the 2008 presidential nonimation bewteen Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, according to informal straw poll last week.

Both McCain and Giuliani received 22 percent of the vote taken on April 13 during an event sponsored by the Petersburg Republican Party.

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore received 17 percent of the vote, as did former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received 12 percent of the vote, while former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, California Congressman Duncan Hunter and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee all received 3 percent.

The straw poll took place at the second annual Lincoln-Douglass-Mahone dinner and silent auction in Petersburg. The 38 participants included Republicans from Dinwiddie, Hopewell, Colonial Heights and Chesterfield.

“While Petersburg, as a jurisdiction, traditionally delivers the smallest overall percentage of GOP votes in the commonwealth, the fact is that one Republican vote in our city equals any other in Virginia. Moreover, guests from neighboring Southside Virginia cities and counties joined in the vote,” explained Linas Kojelis, chairman of the Petersburg Republican Party.

[dirtboy]

My remarks about McCain have absolutely nothing to do with the Iraq war. It is his past that I don’t like.

And what of his past? The claim he was a collaborator while a POW? That is unsubstaniated.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Our Virginia county party refuses to take a straw poll on the presidential race. We won’t get sucked into the divisiveness. OK, so I asked them to do one, so it’s not me. I thought it would be cool to make national headlines for our committee, and maybe get one of the candidates to try to “woo” us.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I liked their “38 participants”. We have twice that show up for our normal meetings, and a lot more when there is something important to vote on. With 38 voters, that means the “22%” was 8.36 votes. Love to know how they did that. 8 would be 21%, 7 would be 18%.

So it’s like they had 8 Rudy, 8 McCain, and 7 Gingrich. But since their percentages don’t match those numbers, I don’t know WHAT they actually did.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Looking more at the numbers:

8 - Rudy (21%) (article: 22%)
8 - McCain (21%) (article: 22%)
7 - Gingrich (18%) (article: 17%)
7 - Gilmore (18%) (article: 17%)
5 - Romney (13%) (article: 12%)
1 - Thompson (3%) (a: 3%)
1 - Hunter (3%) (a: 3%)
1 - Huckabee (3%) (a:3%)

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38, 100%, (article: 99%)

If you ever needed a sign that we started this election campaign too soon, there it is. We are reporting what 38 people living in a town that isn’t even the biggest city in 20 miles of itself think about next year’s primary.

[KATIE-O]

McCain will be 72 at the time the President is sworn in. At this time in our history, that’s too old, IMO. Reagan was older but the Cold War was not as threatening and as much stress as the WOT. It’s a younger man’s game now. I will only vote for McCain if he gets our party’s nomination and that’s not likely.

[Ayal Rosenthal]

Lets be realistic here, from a pure statistical standpoint, any sample size less than 40 is not considered to be representative of a population.