Newt Gingrich wins national Tea Party straw poll

December 21, 2011|By Sarah Schweitzer

Newt Gingrich may be considered a Washington insider, but he’s going strong with the anti-establishment Tea Party movement.

In a straw poll taken by the Tea Party Patrtiots, the nation’s largest Tea Party group, Gingrich drew 31 percent of the vote, with Michele Bachmann close behind with 28 percent.

Mitt Romney drew 20 percent and Rick Santorum 16 percent.

The straw poll of more than 23,000 Tea Party supporters was taken Sunday evening after a tele-conference with participating candidates that included the four top vote-getters – Gingrich, Bachmann, Romney and Santorum. Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and Ron Paul did not participate.

As the Globe’s Tracy Jan reported earlier this month, Gingrich has been a favorite of the Tea Party since a series of other candidates fell out of favor, starting with Bachmann and followed by Perry and Herman Cain, who dropped out of the race following a series of sexual harassment allegations. A recent Gallup poll showed that 47 percent of voters who support the Tea Party movement are behind Gingrich. (More than half of Republicans consider themselves Tea Party supporters.) A month earlier, Gingrich had garnered 18 percent of Tea Party support, behind Herman Cain and Mitt Romney.