That's right! 324 registered Republicans were polled, and chose Grayson over all 13 potential GOP challengers - combined! (Most of those polled - 57.7% - were undecided, so much of it's about name recognition.)
Florida Democrat Alan Grayson's Congressional campaign has been doing some interesting polling in his district. Amongst Republicans in FL-08, he would win their primary were he on the ballot. It seems that they like how he's been standing up, even if they don't agree with him on all the issues. They like his style!
This finding just might contain lessons for Democrats in this fall's upcoming midterms. For all the media cluck-clucking about Grayson's brash manner, it would appear that voters like his style. So much so that if he were on the Republican primary ballot, he'd win!
No, that's not a typo. According to a poll of registered Republicans last week, Congressman Alan Grayson has an enormous lead in the Republican primary for Florida Congressional District 8 (FL-8).
Of course, Grayson is a Democrat. Yet Grayson is far and away the leading choice among registered Republicans in FL-8. In fact, he has almost twice as much support among Republicans as all his Republican opponents combined.
But then there's this:
In 2009, Grayson, who carries a copy of the Constitution with him, passed a resolution calling on schools to teach the document for one week in September each year.
Over half of the Republicans polled said that they were more likely to vote for Grayson because of the resolution. He has distributed tens of thousands of copies of the Constitution throughout the district, including one to each high school senior. This September, he said, he plans to go to high schools and teach the Constitution personally in the district.
Perhaps that could be called a "pull" poll? It wouldn't make sense to call it a "push poll." None of his opponents have any name recognition, so they could hardly get tarred by innuendo or misleading accusations.
Part of why Grayson did well might be a simple matter of name recognition. At any rate, the Republicans are having none of it. HuffPo contacted the NRCC for comment:
"This is the most bogus thing I've ever seen in my life," said Andy Seré, Regional Press Secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
I got emailed a link to ConnecticutMan1 at ePluribusMedia, who adds the following commentary:
That all mythical squishy middle centristy stuff that The Village preschoolers can not read or write beyond? The one that Obama keeps trying to to pander to and live off of while producing medicocre to pure crap legislation, IF he can get anything to pass at all, which is pissing everybody on all political sides off.
I wouldn't it put it quite so harshly myself. But I do think there's an important lesson in there for House and Senate races - upcoming primaries and in the fall as well. Bill Halter could maybe address it in that Arkansas primary to good effect, for example.