Hip Hop CSS Live : DEBRA MEDINA exploding in the Polls in race for GOVENOR of TEXAS

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

DEBRA MEDINA exploding in the Polls in race for GOVENOR of TEXAS

Surprise: Medina scores high in ARN online poll

An unscientific poll on www.reporternews.com Friday indicated overwhelming support for Debra Medina in Thursday's Republican gubernatorial debate.

But don't call the March 2 primary election in her favor just yet.

Dr. Paul Fabrizio, professor of political science at McMurry University, sees the results of the poll as more indicative of a passionate response by Medina supporters rather than a true response by all Republican voters.

He said support for Medina is mainly generated by the Tea Party and the 9-12 Project, which share her philosophy.

Of the 1,109 votes cast in the poll by 9:30 p.m., Medina received 82 percent, followed by 9 percent for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, and 8 percent for Gov. Rick Perry. The Reporter-News asked the question: Who do you think won Thursday's gubernatorial debate?

The response was possibly the highest ever to a Reporter-News poll. Poll questions are asked on weekdays on the newspaper Web site. Safeguards are built in to prevent people from voting over-and-over, but they can be bypassed. Results can be manipulated by e-mailing the Web link to other like-minded people. So there is no way of knowing until Election Day if the results point to a developing trend of support for the candidate, or just a particularly exuberant response by Medina supporters.

"It is a fortuitous coincidence that Medina came along supporting the policies of the groups coming into existence last year, and she is the beneficiary of them," Fabrizio said.

Joy Ellinger, Taylor County Republican Party chair, said she relies on the Rasmussen poll or Gallup for more accurate information. A November Rasmussen poll showed Perry leading the race with 46 percent, followed by Hutchison with 35 percent and Medina with 4 percent.

Local business owner and co-founder of Abilene's 9-12 Project, Greta Holzberlein, said she is throwing all of her support to Medina because she is tired of big government and crooked politicians.

"I'm just sick of the politics as usual," Holzberlein said.

Farmer and rancher Winston Ohlhausen agrees.

He is also president of the local Pachyderm Club and he said he thought many in the organization are supporters of Medina as well.

"We don't endorse a candidate in the primary," Ohlhausen said. "Our main purpose is to educate voters."