Recently, some McBerry supporters have been telling me I needed to get my facts straight on him while maintaining that he has “won every straw poll except one in the winer’s home county.”
So I went through the PeachPundit archives – possibly the best single source of information for GOP straw poll results – looking for straw polls from 2009 and specifically how Ray McBerry did in them. The general data was also very interesting from the 14 straw polls I found from April through November, here’s what I saw:
McBerry came in 2nd in Walker County in November and the 11th District Convention in April, 3rd at the Henry County GOP Women in October, tied for third at the Young Republicans event in May – and hit either next to last or last every single time other than the ones I’ve named. Several of those times he came next to last were to the last entrant into the GOP field so far and who told me he didn’t even officially kick off his campaign until just a few weeks ago – Jeff Chapman.
More generally, on the year, these are the totals:
| Name | Num Votes | Percent |
| Handel | 505 | 26.22 |
| Oxendine | 486 | 25.23 |
| Deal | 364 | 18.90 |
| Johnson | 229 | 11.89 |
| Scott | 141 | 7.32 |
| McBerry | 6.8 | |
| Chapman | 1.61 |
Handel, Oxendine, and McBerry were the only ones on every ballot. Deal and Johnson were both off 4 of the 14 ballots, Scott was off two of them, and Chapman – who did not file to enter the race until September – was off of 6 of the 14 ballots.
Looking at rankings on each ballot and computing the number of times any given candidate ranked at any given level, we see:
| Name | Winner | Second | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th |
| Handel | 5 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oxendine | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Deal | 2 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Johnson | 0 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Scott | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 0 |
| McBerry | 0 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Chapman | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
There are 175 days left in this campaign, and a lot can happen between now and then – indeed, right now the game is still very much inside baseball, and who knows how the general public is going to react when the campaigns kick into high gear after the end of the General Assembly session and voters really start getting engaged probably after Memorial Day.
But the question remains: If we look to the past for a guide to the future, will the results of July 20 have any resemblance to the results of 2009?
Some of McBerry’s supporters seem as delusional as he is defiant (at the close of business on Friday there is no filed disclosure statement). There is still almost six months until the primary. A lot can happen during that period of time. Scandals or ethics issues could be brought to light. Once endorsements from the house and senate start coming out, they could conceivably be game changers for some of the candidates. The mighty/frontrunners can fall. There is still an enormous amount of time. Time will tell all.