And the Winner of the 2011 Ames Straw Poll is… Michele Bachmann

Michele Bachmann is the winner of the Ames Straw Poll.

On a day when Gov. Perry announced he’s running for President in South Carolina, Michele Bachmann has taken the top prize. Congratulations to Bachmann and her supporters, a hard-earned and well-deserved victory.

May the best candidate win when the actual votes are cast in 2012.

2011 Straw Poll Results (Note, this is the first time write-ins were ever accepted at Ames.):

1. Michele Bachmann – 4, 823 (28.55%)
2. Ron Paul – 4,671 (27.65%)
3. Tim Pawlenty – 2,293 (13.57%)
4. Rick Santorum – 1,657 (9.81%)
5. Herman Cain – 1,456 (8.62%)
6. Rick Perry – 718 (4.25%)
7. Mitt Romney – 567 (3.36%)
8. Newt Gingrich – 385 (2.28%)
9. Jon Huntsman – 69 (0.41%)
10. Thaddeus Mccotter – 35 (0.21%)

162 votes were ‘scattered’ (0.96%).

Tweet from Governor Romney:

Congratulations to Michele Bachmann for winning the Iowa GOP’s straw poll. Look forward to crossing paths on the campaign trailless than a minute ago via web Favorite Retweet ReplyMitt Romney
MittRomney

2007 Ames Straw Poll results:

1 Mitt Romney 4,516 votes or 31.6%
2 Mike Huckabee 2,587 votes or 18.1%
3 Sam Brownback 2,192 votes or 15.3%
4 Tom Tancredo 1,961 votes or 13.7%
5 Ron Paul 1,305 votes or 9.1%
6 Tommy Thompson 1,039 votes or 7.3%
7 Fred Thompson 203 votes or 1.4%
8 Rudy Giuliani 183 votes or 1.3%
9 Duncan Hunter 174 votes or 1.2%
10 John McCain 101 votes or 0.7%
11 John H. Cox 41 votes or 0.3%

Since Mitt didn’t pay for any tickets for his supporters this year, I think it’s very telling that he still garnered more votes than Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain did combined when they didn’t compete in the 2007 Ames straw poll.

UPDATE: A married couple, who supported Mitt during the 2007 Ames Straw Poll, showed up to vote today wearing the yellow t-shirts he handed out four years ago:

Jacqui Norman and her husband were both sporting yellow Romney t-shirts left over from a different time four years ago, when Romney was focused like a laser on winning the Ames straw poll.

“We’ve had lots of people come up and ask us where we got our t-shirts, because they wanted to find them,” said Norman, a 40-year-old from Ames who volunteered for Romney’s previous campaign. “We had a couple dozen stickers left over, so we gave those to some people.”