Texas Teabaggers Conduct Straw Poll

Texas teabaggers met in Houston the other day. They gathered to hear some candidates (or their proxies) and conduct a straw poll to see where the ultra-right in Texas stands on the presidential nomination and other state races. The organizers were expecting over a thousand people to show up, but as the picture above from the Houston Chronicle shows, it is very doubtful they came anywhere near that total. All those empty seats show that even in a solidly Republican state like Texas it is very hard for teabaggers to draw a big crowd these days.

There were actually two polls taken in the Saddle Up Texas Straw Poll. The first was of those people who actually showed up in person. The results of that poll was just released by percentages and the number of voters was not released -- probably because of the embarrassingly small turnout. The second poll was conducted by texting. About 3300 people voted by texting in their vote. Here are the results of both straw polls:

SADDLE UP TEXAS POLL (IN PERSON)
Ron Paul...............27.9%
Newt Gingrich...............23.8%
Rick Santorum...............21.2%
Rick Perry...............19.4%
Mitt Romney...............6.6%
Jon Huntsman...............1.1%
Buddy Roemer...............0.0%

SADDLE UP TEXAS POLL (TEXT)
Ron Paul...............54.4%
Rick Santorum...............15.6%
Rick Perry...............13.3%
Newt Gingrich...............11.9%
Mitt Romney...............4.2%
Jon Huntsman...............0.5%
Buddy Roemer...............0.0%

I don't think this poll can be used as a predictor of how Texas will vote when it finally does hold its primary on April 3rd. After all, this is not a representative sample of Texas Republicans, but only a small sample of the ultra-right teabaggers. However, I do think a few things can be gleaned from this straw poll.

1. Rick Perry needs to drop out of the race. The teabaggers are his natural constituency, and if he can't carry a majority of them in his home state then he is not going to be able to do it elsewhere.
2. Mitt Romney still has made no inroads into the teabagger vote -- at least not in Texas.
3. Ron Paul is still very good at turning out his supporters for straw polls (although it remains to be seen if he can do the same in the real primary).
4. Republicans still don't know who Buddy Roemer is, or care very much.

(A big tip of my hat goes to Perry at Brains and Eggs for bringing this poll to my attention. He does a very nice job of covering Texas politics.)