Mitt Romney won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Convention (CPAC) last week, but the integrity of the win has been questioned.
Of the 3,408 straw poll votes, 38 percent went to Romney, 31 percent to Rick Santorum , and 15 percent to Newt Gingrich.
Politico’s Jonathan Martin confirmed by a Republican source that Romney’s campaign purchased tickets, and used their straw poll ticket to flood the poll. The New York Times’ Jeff Zeleny reported that the Romney campaign also bused students in to support their candidate.
On Thursday, Feb. 9, there were virtually no Romney fans to be seen, said the Hillsdale students who attended the conference. It was the Santorum fans, rather, that had flooded the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel with stickers, signs, and other campaign material. On Friday, groups of Romney fans showed up, but stayed together in tight groups.
“I noticed that the first day there were a whole lot of Santorum posters, a lot of stickers going around, and by the next day, all of a sudden the Romney stickers started showing up, and after his rally, his paraphernalia really started going around,” said Audrey Gray, a sophomore at Hillsdale College.
“There were a bunch of them in clusters holding signs [before Romeney’s rally on Thursday].. It was out of the blue,” said sophomore and Collegian Copy Editor Morgan Sweeney. “On Friday, there were Santorum supporters standing across from Romney supporters, and it seemed to get heated.”
Junior Baillie Jones said the announcement of Romney’s win brought grumbling from the attendees.
“There seemed to be a general resentment,” said Jones, and added, “A lot of people seemed to be disappointed. It seemed like not a lot of people wanted him to win, which was confirmed by the [Politico] article.”
On CNN last Sunday, Santorum insinuated Romney had rigged the straw poll. “I don’t try to rig straw polls,” he said. “You have to talk to the Romney campaign and how many tickets they bought.”
Romney, however, told Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade that Santorum had “sour grapes” about the loss, and questioned whether Santorum could prove that the straw poll was rigged.
