Tomorrow, Hoosier Republicans will choose their nominee for the state’s open Senate seat in a primary. (Thanks to their clever maneuvering, Democrats will choose their nominee in a smoke-filled room later this summer, with the choice pre-ordained.) A recent Survey USA poll shows that there is a clear frontrunner:
Former Sen. Dan Coats: 36%
Former Rep. John Hostettler: 24%
State Sen. Marlin Stutzman: 18%
Don Bates, Jr. 6%
Richard Behney 4%
Coats, who left the Senate and became a lobbyist, ambassador to Germany, and again a lobbyist, is a strong favorite for the nomination at this point. The news has frustrated Tea Party leaders, as Steve Brown reports, but not necessarily Tea Party voters:
The most surprising single piece of data in the poll was Coats’ strong standing among likely voters who “identify with the Tea Party movement”. In that group…Coats got 30%…Stutzman 23%…Hostettler 21%…Undecided 11%…Bates 9% and Behney 4%.
Why is that surprising? Coats did not win a single straw poll at any of the debates sponsored by Tea Party groups. Organizers have repeatedly told me that of the five Republican candidates…the Tea Party favorites are Stutzman, Behney and Bates.
That Coats should perform so strongly among Tea Party sympathizers is a sign of two things:
1) First, the movement’s sympathizers may not be seeking change quite as radical as one has been led to believe. Their backing of Coats suggests that they’d be happy just finding a Republican who will win in November and take over the Senate seat being vacated by Evan Bayh.
2) Second, the Tea Party vote is split between too many candidates. Behney, a Tea Party organizer, is going nowhere, and he’s hurting the Jim DeMint-backed Stutzman. Hostettler, who falls more into the Ron Paul/Walter Jones camp of anti-war conservatism, is also cutting into the Tea Party vote. (Hoss, an avid gun-owner once detained for trying to carry his firearm on a plane, delivered a famous House floor speech about House Democrats’ war on Christianity, which begins at the link just before the 3-minute mark).
