GOP County Mass Meetings Show Ted Cruz The Establishment Choice
Ted Cruz’s anti-establishment message seems to be winning with the members of the GOP establishment who gathered Saturday to begin the process to select their leaders. “Large” counties with populations over 80,000 held GOP mass precinct meetings today, where delegates from Georgia are chosen to represent the state at the Republican National Convention in exciting glamorous geographically centered Cleveland Ohio.
Some straw polls were held during these meetings. I’ve found the following on Facebook. Feel free to post others you are aware of in the comments.
I tweeted during the resolutions portion of the last State GOP Convention that it was becoming clear that our Establishment delegates were getting farther and farther from representative voters in GOP primaries. Yet in the only place I recall making a public prediction on Georgia’s Presidential Preference Primary (to the Gilmer GOP back in October) I said that Cruz would probably take Georgia. You may draw your own conclusions to either, but the degree of magnitude seen below (couple with at least one rather…unique result from the Coweta GOP) makes me openly question whether GOP organizations are seeking diversity of thought within the conservative movement or enforcing group think. While I doubt we’ll solve that question in these comments, I do look forward to comparing these percentages to those of the actual vote on March 1st.
Governor John Oxendine was not available to comment on these results.
| Bush | Carson | Cruz | Kasich | Rubio | Trump | Other/Undecided | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bibb | 0% | 12.5% | 42.5% | 7.5% | 12.5% | 22.5% | 2.5% |
| Cherokee | 0% | .76% | 58.33% | 3.03% | 14.39% | 16.67% | 6.82% |
| Coweta | 1% | 3% | 80% | 3% | 7% | 6% | 0% |
| Forsyth | 2.13% | 2.84% | 60.99% | 1.42% | 17.73% | 14.18% | .71% |
| Muscogee | 1.6% | 11.6% | 60% | 3.3% | 6.6% | 15% | 1.6% |
| Paulding | 2% | 0% | 77% | 0% | 14% | 5% | 2% |
Bibb County (courtesy of Doug Deal)
Posted by Doug Deal on Saturday, February 20, 2016
Cherokee County (courtesy of Rep Scot Turner)
Straw Poll results from the Cherokee County Republican Mass Precinct Meetings. Ted Cruz wins big. #GAGOP
Posted by Scot Turner on Saturday, February 20, 2016
Coweta County (courtesy of their party Facebook Page)
Coweta County Caucus Results …
Posted by Coweta GOP on Saturday, February 20, 2016
Forsyth County (courtesy of their Website)
Muscogee County (courtesy of Sen Josh McKoon)
Results from Muscogee GOP Presidential Straw Poll: Cruz 60%, Trump 15%, Carson 11.6%, Rubio 6.6%, Kasich 3.3%, Bush 1.6%, Undecided 1.6%. #gapol #gagop
Posted by Josh McKoon on Saturday, February 20, 2016
About Author
Charlie
Founder of GeorgiaPol.com; Now weekly columnist Very interested in Georgia and Georginas. Interest in politics is waning daily.
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Georgia went for Huckabee in ’08 and Gingrich in ’12. I have a feeling that Cruz could join their successful campaigns.
One can only hope.
Can you feel the Rubio momentum? If not, keep trying. Pundits, reporters and the national GOP establishment insist it’s gotta be there somewhere.
I vacillated between fear and joy at the month ago GOP strategy suggestion that the establishment coalesce around Cruz to knock out Trump, and then think of something to take out Cruz. Fear at what had become of a GOP establishment to cause it to support the worst candidate possible of winning the GOP nomination, and joy that the strategy was likely to result in another Dem Prez. It’s bittersweet joy though, since the GOP, the Dem Prez, and most importantly the whole country suffers should the GOP nominee be Cruz.
There wasn’t a straw poll in Gwinnett, although based on clothing and stickers, Cruz seemed to be a favorite. After the mass meetings were over, there was a group of Rubio supporters with signs that appeared to be ready to go door to door. Also, one Trump person with signs that didn’t seem to be getting too many takers.
I do find it interesting that the quintessential (that means five times as essential) insider and establishment candidate, Jeb!!!1! received almost no votes from the party insiders who choose Cruz, a party outsider. I am not sure words have meaning anymore.
Thanks for the Bibb numbers.
I thought the in-state gop establishment had been solid with Rubio ever since they realized Jeb! had nothing. Did they all maybe forget to vote yesterday? Even for straw poll results, those above are too crazy to believe. I don’t know who’ll win Mar 1 but I’m fairly certain Cruz won’t get more than Trump and Rubio combined. If Cruz is that popular right now, how come RFRA has been derailed?
I had a nightmare: We are in Pogofenokee with Cruella de Vil Hill vs. the Don S.S. Malarkey, Deacon Cruz and my guy, Marco Pogo.
What I find strange is Trump way ahead in the polls in Georgia, and Rubio doing much better than this straw poll. Does that mean the people at the meetings, who represent the party are out of touch with the GOP voters?
John, I’m pretty sure the activists’ vote does not necessarily reflect the casual primary voter. We tend to be more loyal to a candidate once we sign on, we are also more aware of the nuances of campaigning, and view the media (which is spoon feeding the information) differently.
For instance, the casual primary voter will be more affected by the “liar, liar” campaigns being used by at least two of the candidates. Superficial answers to problems are little more than cliche’s to the more politically engaged are viewed as solutions to the casual voter.
The casual voter may be unaware or not care about those pesky technical issues like eminent domain, 2nd Amendment, planned parenthood funding, & campaign contribution history. Many are just frustrated and ready to try anything to affect change. Think of it as Obama 2008 taking place in our own primaries.
Of course, the polls could be wrong altogether, targeting the wrong voters. But I figure anything is possible in a country that elected Obama twice.
Brian,
You make some very interesting points! But if the mass meeting voters are so savvy and understand “pesky technical issues” why would so many way out of the norm support Cruz? Is not Cruz ‘superficial” about the issues?
For example:
1) Immigration not only did Cruz propose a path to work visas for illegal immigrants already here, as a senator, he was on the team with Bush 2 that put forth his immigration bill.
2) Cruz was fund raising with wealthy gay contributors in NY for his campaign, telling them gay marriage was not a big issue, while in other areas crying culture war.
3) Cruz was the main spokesperson for John Roberts, while he rips him now.
I could go on and on…..I think. “We tend to be more loyal to a candidate once we sign on…” is more the point, than any real objective insight. If so, we would of not seen the straw poll results. The only conclusion, one could get from the Cruz/Hillary campaigns, is they will say anything to anyone to get elected.
For those on the left picking a GOP candidate to shred today, a bit of irony:
To get one Hillary speech ranting on the wage gap you have to pay her more than an the average CEO annual salary.
“The average CEO, using Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, makes $216,100. Clinton’s speaking agent, the Harry Walker Agency Inc., charged about $275,000 a speech and packaged three for Wall Street’s Goldman Sachs at $675,000.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wage-gap-one-hillary-clinton-speech-more-than-average-ceo-salary/article/2583804
No straw poll in Midtown but the whopping three people from my south Atlanta HD all seemed to be Rubio folks so that settles it.
@John: “What I find strange is Trump way ahead in the polls in Georgia, and Rubio doing much better than this straw poll. Does that mean the people at the meetings, who represent the party are out of touch with the GOP voters?”
Yes I think they are definitely out of touch. And the crazy thing is there are like different levels of out of touch. There’s Trump level out of touch – let’s vote for an insane guy who wants to burn it all down. And then there’s Cruz out of touch – let’s vote for the most conservative guy who wants to burn it all down. Both would get killed in a general IMO.
But then again both men are going to get over 25% here on Mar. 1 so at what point does “out of touch” become “hopelessly splintered”?
No straw poll in DeKalb either, but there sure were a lot of Rubio signs being peddled. If that means anything.
Afterthought: There’s nothing to compare that to, since no other campaign’s signs were at that meeting.