In the second in a planned series of four straw polls for the Republican gubernatorial scrum (the final two will be in mid-March, and then again right before the primary election), newcomer Steve Abbott has barely eked out the winner of our first straw poll, Paul LePage to emerge as the winner.

This poll certainly generated a lot of heat.  The first poll we conducted has a grand total of 1 comment, while this one generated a long string of discussion, argument, slander, mud, anger, name calling, and the petty bickering that tends to come along with contested elections.  In other words – this race is in full swing, and the supporters came out in droves to support their candidate.

The full results are as follows:

The fact that Abbott and LePage came out on top is no surprise to me, given the activity I saw surrounding this poll.  I received a large number of Facebook messages asking me to vote, and even got some emails as well.  The second tier of effort was the Bruce Poliquins and Matt Jacobsons of the world who made an effort, but didn’t push nearly as hard to get their supporters out as Abbott and LePage did.  And then after those two, there was very little effort at all that I saw from the other candidates.

So, that should tell you the limitations of a survey like this – they are highly dependent on who tries the hardest, whips up the most votes, and so on and so forth.  I never claimed this to be a scientific survey, so please don’t treat it as such.  It was really just to be a fun little straw poll to engage readers and supporters of the various candidates in what I consider to be a good natured contest.

But still, while unscientific and highly subjective, these number should tell us a few things that I think are not exactly controversial.

First, my assertion back in early October that Paul LePage would be the “movement” candidate – and by that I mean somebody who was viewed as down to earth and authentic by supporters, and can have his candidacy sustained on the enthusiasm of the people who believe in him, even if they face huge challenges like money or institutional support.  LePage seems to have really cornered the market in this respect, getting a lot of support from what I would describe as a mix of Ron Paul voters and salt of the earth people who identify with candidates like Sarah Palin.

Transversely, for all the talk that “nobody knows who Steve Abbott is” – clearly somebody out there does.  His showing tells us that he has “people” out there, and given his long history in Collins-world, that does not surprise me one bit.  My assumption is that his votes came from a mix of personal contacts he has collected over the years, people who came into his sphere in the various campaigns for Susan Collins, and politically aware moderates who identify him with Maine’s junior Senator.

Which is all to say that we saw that at a bare minimum, there are people out there for virtually all of these candidates.  The posturing by the various supporters of LePage, Abbott, Poliquin, and Jacobson in the comment section of the poll notwithstanding, this remains a race that has still yet to be defined, and features a rather eclectic group of candidates, each of whom will likely be able to make a great deal of noise, if they simply play their cards right.

We look forward to the results from our next poll a couple months from now.  Thanks for participating.