Saturday, October 26, 2013

Official Minnesota GOP straw poll. That bunch? I'd have voted for the straw.

Official Gubernatorial and U.S. Senate Straw Poll Results
from the Republican Party of Minnesota's State Central Committee Convention

  
Jeff Johnson and Julianne Ortman won the non-binding straw polls for Governor and U.S. Senator respectively today at the Republican Party of Minnesota State Central Committee meeting in Blaine.

Johnson won 35% of the votes in the Governor’s poll with Dave Thompson coming in second with 27%. Ortman won the Senatorial poll with 37% with Mike McFadden coming in second with 21%.

“Congratulations to today’s winners Jeff Johnson and Julianne Ortman,” said Keith Downey, Chairman of the Republican Party of Minnesota. “It was a day full of great speeches, great messages, great candidates, great energy, and great momentum going forward for the party. We couldn’t be more excited about the pool of candidates ready to take on Al Franken and Mark Dayton, and I can’t wait for our state convention next year when the delegates ultimately select our Republican candidates.”

Governor Results:
  • Jeff Johnson - 35%
  • Dave Thompson - 27%
  • Marty Seifert (write-in) - 18%
  • Kurt Zellers - 8%
  • Rob Farnsworth - 6%
  • Scott Honour - 4%

U.S. Senate Results:
  • Julianne Ortman - 37%
  • Mike McFadden - 22%
  • Harold Shudlick - 13%
  • Chris Dahlberg - 12%
  • Jim Abeler - 11%
  • Monti Moreno - 3%
* Note: the percentages do not add up to 100% due to spoiled ballots, and write-in candidate vote totals were not included if they did not receive at least 10 votes.


End of official GOP stuff, begin Crabgrassing: Scott Honour did not do too well. McFadden, the stealth candidate did better. How much better (or worse) can we expect if he starts showing up places where the other candidates gather to bloviate and counterbloviate? My bet, if he keeps quiet longer, continues to duck the venues where the others are active, his numbers cannot help but go up.

Kurt Zellers was beaten by a write-in? You do that shutdown stuff, it comes back to bite you because after that, nobody's got your back. Boehner and Cruz will find that out unless Obama does some stupid negotiation thing to save their bacon.