Mitt Romney wins the First Illinois Straw Poll

Bragging rights was mostly won by Mitt Romney at the first Illinois Straw Poll on Thursday, Ron Paul finishes third.

Mitt Romney wins the First Illinois Straw Poll For the first time Illinois decided to join in on the straw-action and a straw poll was held on Thursday at the State Fair. The winner, however, left only with bragging rights and a little of media attention, as the turnout was nowhere near Iowa - only 922 votes were cast at the Illinois State Fair. The Illinois Straw Poll was won by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 40.4 percent or 373 of the votes.

To illustrate the irrelevance of the Illinois Straw Poll on the GOP Presidential Race, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson was second with 20% of the votes, but Thompson has not formally announced his candidacy for President. Ron Paul was third with 18.9 % or 174 votes, fourth was former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 11.6 % and Sen. John McCain of Arizona finished fifth with 4.1%.

The rest of the nine candidates' straw poll results:

6. Mike Huckabee - 3%

7. Sam Brownback - 1.1%

8. Duncan Hunter - 0.65%

9. Tom Tancredo - 0.33%

The Illinois Straw Poll did absolutely nothing to move the odds on the GOP presidential hopefuls. Rudy Giuliani is still the favorite to be named as the Republican Candidate for the 2008 US Presidential Election with odds 11/10, followed by John McCain at 5/1. Internet campaign master Ron Paul is still at 25/1, odds by Bodog Sports.

Published on 08/16/2007