Herman Cain wins another straw poll

The outcome of a national straw poll of members was posted on the Tea Party Nation website, and is repeated below for reference.  The author is the founder of Tea Party Nation, Judson Phillips in Nashville TN, who recently gave his personal endorsement to Newt Gingrich.  Newt Gingrich was in Barrington in early September, and is also doing much better in recent straw polls.

That was prior to Herman Cain's recent surge in popularity  such as the straw poll after the last debate at the regional CPAC event in Orlando, Florida and the National Federation of Republican Women  convention in Kansas City (link is to a video of his speech).  Those poll results are posted separately. 

Both of those straw polls attracted significant national media attention to the Cain campaign.  Herman Cain was also very popular at the recent TeaCon meeting in Schaumburg, where he explained his 9-9-9 tax reform plan.

The next debate is in New Hampshire on Bloomberg on October 11, followed by another in Las Vegas on CNN on October 18.  Those should be really interesting!  Watch for an announcement about a local viewing party for those debates.

Herman Cain has just launched the promotional tour for his new book this week, so his visibility should continue to increase.  Newt Gingrich is also attracting interest with the launch of his new Contract with America.  For those who may have missed it, Newt gave a really good speech to the NRA Celebration of American Values Leadership Forum last April, where Herman Cain also gave a speech which is worth seeing.

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Tea Party Nation has conducted another presidential preference straw poll. This time, it included the eight announced candidates and the two potential candidates (Palin and Christie). The results are in.

Who is the winner?

Herman Cain.

Herman Cain took in 44% of the vote, reflecting his surging popularity among conservatives and Tea Party supporters.

• Coming in second, with 22% was Newt Gingrich, also reflecting his surge.

The rest of the field broke down as follows:

• Sarah Palin 9%
• Michele Bachmann 8%
• Ron Paul 5%
• Rick Perry 4%
• Chris Christie 2.5%
• Mitt Romney 2%
• Rick Santorum less than 2%
• Gary Johnson less than .5%
• Jon Huntsman less than .5%

The numbers have been rounded.

This poll has some interesting surprises in it. Michele Bachmann, who won the original poll back in June has seen her percentage drop from 43% in June to 8% now. Rick Perry’s collapse has been stunning. In June, even as an unannounced candidate, he was getting 15% of the vote. In August, that shot to 29% of the poll vote. Now he has crashed to 4% of the vote.

The two big winners were Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich. Cain drew a respectable 14% in Jun and Gingrich only drew a little over 1%. In this latest poll, Cain has rocketed to the top with 44% and while Gingrich is not exactly nipping at his heels yet, has gone to second place with a significant increase.

For Mitt Romney, this poll is yet another sign he can forget about Tea Party support. Only 2% of those in the poll supported him. Last month, TPN did a poll asking, “If Mitt Romney were the GOP nominee, would you vote for him?” A staggering 45% said they would not vote for him if he were the nominee.

Perhaps the biggest loser out of this poll is Michele Bachmann. Her once strong Tea Party support has evaporated. Rick Perry, who needs Tea Party support if he is going to prevail seems to have lost almost all of his support.

Among the Tea Party, based on this poll, it seems to be a two man race for the support of conservatives between Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich. 

One of these two will be the conservative choice to face off against Mitt Romney.