The winner of today’s GOP presidential straw poll will shock you
The Southern Republican Leadership Conference has been going on these last few days in Oklahoma City. Per the event website, the SRLC is the unofficial kickoff of the presidential election season. It’s only appropriate, then, that they poll their attendees to gauge sentiment toward the GOP’s 2016 field.
And the results will shock you.
The winner is …
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Ben Carson! Dr. Carson garnered 25.4% of the vote, nearly five full points ahead of the second place finisher, Scott Walker, who received 20.5%. Rounding out the top five were Ted Cruz (16.6%), Chris Christie (5.3%) and Rick Perry (5%).
Straw polls results are almost always outliers (remember that Michele Bachmann won the 2011 Iowa Straw Poll, but dropped out of the race a few months later after performing poorly in the Iowa Caucuses). The SRLC poll respondents were overwhelmingly residents of Oklahoma, so this may be more a reflection of that state’s feelings than a national trend.
A breakdown of the candidates by issue shows Carson and Cruz with strong support from self-identified social conservatives. Rand Paul, unsurprisingly, did well with libertarians. Full straw poll results can be found here.
The straw polls have begun. Next stop, the debates!
