Bachmann Makes Hay in Iowa

Posted on Aug 14, 2011

Flickr / Gage Skidmore

A straw poll win does not guarantee Bachmann victory in the caucuses. Mitt Romney won the poll in 2007 and lost to Mike Huckabee five months later.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann beat out other Republicans to win the Iowa straw poll in Ames on Saturday, receiving 4,823 of the nearly 17,000 votes cast. She leaped far ahead of party favorite Mitt Romney, R-Mass., but barely topped U.S. Rep. Ron Paul. And the tea party darling’s celebration was dampened as Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced his run for president that same day. —ARK

Los Angeles Times:

Michele Bachmann captured the famed Iowa straw poll in Ames Saturday, reaching a high-profile benchmark in her meteoric rise to a top-tier presidential candidate.

Bachmann made history as well, becoming the first woman to win the event. She received 4,823 votes out of the almost 17,000 votes cast. The turnout was a significant leap over four years ago but didn’t approach the record of more than 23,000 votes cast back in 1999.

... Still, in spite of Bachmann’s victory, the poll came on the day that Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared that he, too, will mount a presidential run, setting up a showdown in Iowa over the social and fiscal conservatives that dominate the caucuses here.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.