March 07, 2010 10:40 PM UTC

Underdogs Shine In South Denver GOP Straw Poll

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• by: redstateblues

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

Yesterday’s Candidate Search 2010 event hosted by the South Denver 912 Project, and live streamed by the People’s Press Collective, was a showcase of GOP candidates for nearly all levels of elected office.

Candidates for Governor, CD2, CD6, CD7, US Senate, State Treasurer, Secretary of State, state House and Senate, and county positions were featured at the March 6 South Denver Candidate Search 2010 Forum.

Included in the activities for the afternoon was a straw poll of attendees that yielded results that may be surprising to some. From Colorado Statesman reporter Ernest Luning‘s twitter feed:

Yep, you read that correctly. Weld County DA Ken Buck out-polled US Senate front-runner Jane Norton, and Denver businessman Dan Maes out-polled gubernatorial front-runner Scott McInnis.

Now, that’s not to say that straw polls are meaningful. Usually they’re nothing short of worthless, except to show the barometer of the feelings of the small amount of people present at the time. But in this case, it seems to show that the candidates who are perceived as more entrenched in the political elite are not gaining favor among Republican activists and Tea Partiers.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen attempts by both McInnis and Norton to appeal to the activist base come up short. When McInnis, as well as FOX News and The Wall Street Journal, tried to paint the former Congressman’s plan to revitalize the state’s economy (the so-called “Platform for Propsperity”) as reaching out to the Tea Party, he was blasted by Maes and conservative groups.

Similarly, Norton’s attempts to portray herself as the Tea Party candidate at various meet-and-greet events in communities across Colorado have backfired–caused in no small part by comments like the ones she made last month when she made the claim that the $15 billion HIRE Act passed by Congress was “too small.”

Until this poll is followed by others with similar results, it will only be able to show us what most straw polls show–how people in the room at the time felt at that moment. However, if more local Republican/Tea Party events hold straw polls with the same outcome, you can bet that it will start to set off alarm bells in the McInnis and Norton campaigns–if this one hasn’t already.