Poll results drastically different from Freeborn County Fair

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker captured the second presidential kernel poll held in Freeborn County in the last three weeks.

The unscientific poll was held at the annual Republican summer picnic Monday in Albert Lea by the Freeborn County Republican Party. Each of the 72 people who came to the picnic were given six kernels of corn to place in any of the 18 mason jars that each represented a different declared candidate for the Republican nomination.

The top eight included:

• Scott Walker: 17.8 percent

• Ben Carson, 13.4 percent

• Carly Fiorina, 11.8 percent

• John Kasich 10.7 percent

• Rand Paul, 10.7 percent

• Jeb Bush, 9.9 percent

• Marco Rubio, 9.9 percent

• Donald Trump, 7 percent

The results were dramatically different from the results of the presidential kernel poll taken at the Freeborn County Fair earlier this month.

Results from that poll included:

• Donald Trump: 24.1 percent

• Scott Walker, 13.6 percent

• Mike Huckabee, 9.8 percent

• Ben Carson, 7.5 percent

• Jeb Bush, 7.4 percent

• Carly Fiorina, 6.9 percent

• Marco Rubio, 6.3 percent

• Rand Paul, 5.4 percent

• Ted Cruz, 5.2 percent

• Chris Christie, 3.4 percent

The attendees of the picnic were the core of the Republican Party and will most likely be primary voters, Freeborn County Republican Party chairman Brian Hensley said of the kernel poll.

Hensley said the picnic’s attendants are normally very involved in the party as volunteers and donors. He said that was likely the reason for the difference in Trump’s poll numbers. Hensley said the crowd at the picnic may have felt a personal connection with Walker and viewed him as more conservative than Trump.

Hensley is pleased with the amount of Republicans running for the nomination.

“It’s so great to see voters have so many different, diverse candidates to choose from on the Republican side of the race,” Hensley said. “It’s very different from the coronation occurring on the Democrat side.”

Hensley is optimistic that a Republican will win the presidency in 2016.

“I’m fairly confident in that,” Hensley said. “The American people value conservative beliefs on personal responsibility and lower taxes, not bigger government and higher taxes.”