- Charlie Crist (D) 48.1%
- Rick Scott (R) 34.1%
- Other 5.0%
- Don't know/Refused 12.8%
Inside the numbers:
Republicans stick with Scott at 60.3%, but the current governor garners only 21.6% of the unaffiliated vote. The pop factor is that former governor Crist grabs 74.2% of the Democratic vote and 52.2% of the unaffiliated vote.
A few other breakdowns of interest:
African-Americans - 88.1% support Crist.
Whites - 43.4% Crist, 39.4% Scott.
Hispanic - 37.9% Scott, 35.3% Crist, while 23% stated 'do not know.'
Gender: Crist leads men, 45% to Scott's 39%. Women, 51% support Crist to Scott's 30%.
As for age breakdowns, Crist led all categories: 18-29: 52% to 27%; 30-44: 44% to 38%; 45-59: 55% to 28%; 60+: 45% to 38%.
Like most of the Occupy Wall Street freaks, this guy is completely delusional.
Well Mitt's use of the almighty dollar puts him at the front of the pack in Iowa and for that case in the race itself. Romney has made sure he is not unknown going into the straw poll. But is Mitt really how Iowa wants? Polls have shown that Romney's message has just not spoke loudly in Iowa. Not nearly as much as his name and face. Lets face the facts, Mitt Romney cleans up well and is an extremely good public speaker and puts out a great image on television looking like a family man who is just another average American, the only part of that, that will come back to bit him is in the Straw Poll and Caucus the voters ge
Mike Huckabee has been on an unbelievable tear as of late. It looked as if he was about to take a big hit after the second quarter fundraising figures came out. Huckabee had finished in the bottom 3 of Republicans and it looked like his campaign was about to go into panic mode. H
The man who started out the campaign as the favorite to sweep through the primaries with out much resistance has had a much rougher time than expected and has fallen from his top spot. He refuses to get down and play primary politics. Giuliani seems to think that meeting voters one on one in Iowa and even on a big scale by way of the Ames Straw Poll and the September YouTube debate is too much work for him and not enough gain. Not only has Giuliani lost hundreds of thousands of potential votes by trying to play primary politics on a national level, he has alienated much of his support in Iowa which is THE most important state in the primaries for Republicans. Does anyone else remember what happened to the last big name candidate who tried to take his campaign to a national level months in advance and then got blown out in the primaries?
As you saw above, McCain's campaign has taken hit, after hit, after hit and it is really starting to show. He has been declared the loser of ever debate, except for the first according to Dr. Frank Luntz, the Fox News pollster mentioned earlier in the rankings. It seems like Immigration (which if you might remember Republican Race '08 predicted it spoiling his chance at winning the nomination) has destroyed his campaign. He too has decided to skip the Iowa Straw Poll this Saturday, but his campaign had no real shot at showing well in the poll and so he backed out to have a reason for his poor showing. He did not fair well in 1999 in the Iowa Straw Poll and that was the beginning of the end of his presidential hopes in '99 and here we are in 2008 and we are near the end of the end of his presidential campaign this year. And once again the Iowa Straw Poll will show how little his support he really has.
Who ever thought Tancredo would make it this far? In the last ranking he was ranked dead last behind Jim Gilmore. He has made a surge taking bold stances on not only immigration, but has widened his spectrum to taxes, Congresses high spending and even has a better grip on foreign policy and the War on Terror and Iraq. He has became more and more popular and is now the leader of "the new second tier" and he had an excellent 2nd quarter in fundraising and has used it to get his name out in Iowa. All depending on his showing in the Ames Straw Poll, Congressman Tancredo could be positioning him self as a leading candidate to be the VP nominee.
Duncan Hunter has remained a solid name in the "second tier", but he hasn't really picked up a lot of ground. He did not perform well in fundraising and is not really gaining popularity, but he has been staying in about the same place in polls (around 6th-8th)
Brownback has become the red headed step child of the group. He doesn't get any attention and in an attempt to get more attention he has constantly cried about other candidates and has on two attempts, blamed candidates for things they had nothing to do with (most recently the Huckabee camp for a supporters email). He has not been charming nearly as many Iowans as pundits thought he would. Instead he has become a big annoyance for everyone else in the race and has dropped into the attack mode attacking Romney, Giuliani and Huckabee and it has not helped him in the polls at all and according to Dr. Frank Luntz' real-time feedback dials voters have not liked what Sam Brownback has said about some of his fellow candidate and many did not approve of his campaigns attack phone calls to voters regarding Mitt Romney.
Mr. Wisconsin is the only man who has remained in his post from the last ranking. Tommy has impressed many people on Health Care, if he would make that the main topic of his campaign he would probably be a lot higher in this ranking, but he has not played his card correctly and here he is, a spot away from dead last and only above Ron Paul.
Well I guess we'll see how many Ron Paul cronies read Republican Race '08! Dr. Paul has lost just about all credibility by resorting to the "neo-conservative" movement and take over of the Republican Party. That phase will end any chance he ever had of pulling an upset. It has been a phrase that has ended many "true conservatives" campaigns all across the nation in many republican states. Fact being you don't call your potential voters a name just about all of them hate to be called. You can not alienate voters and expect to win and Ron Paul has done just that. Alienated Republican voters. You would think a man as educated as Dr. Paul would know how to speak to voters, but yet he doesn't and that lands him in dead-last.
That quote came from former Governor of South Carolina David Beasley in today's Conference Call with Bloggers with Gov. Mike Huckabee.