Hillary Wins Sullivan County Straw Poll

Hilleary Scores!
Conservative Leader Gets Straw Poll Win in Critical Sullivan County


KINGSPORT - Former Congressman Van Hilleary continued to take the Republican Senate race by storm Saturday night with a big Straw Poll victory at the Sullivan County Reagan Day Memorial Dinner.

This Straw Poll victory, which comes just a little over a month after Hilleary entered the race, is just the latest indication that Hilleary's campaign has already caught up with fellow conservative Ed Bryant's campaign. Bryant has been an announced candidate all winter and spring.
Hilleary previously got a boost on April 15 when federal campaign finance reports showed he's raising money at a pace three times as fast as Bryant is.

"Sullivan County is very important in this primary and I'm gratified that our grass-roots support is still so strong," said Hilleary, who told the dinner crowd that he is running to make sure Tennessee has a sincere conservative as its next U.S. Senator.

Sullivan County is the sixth largest county in the Tennessee Republican primary and the third largest in East Tennessee.

In the final straw poll results, Hilleary nearly doubled the vote of moderate Mayor Bob Corker, who finished a distant third. Beth Harwell, who is just entering the race, finished fourth.
Statewide, Hilleary leads Bryant by 13%, Corker by 23% and Harwell by 29% according to the only published scientific Republican poll. Bryant's camp has been touting a Democrat poll that purported to show him ahead, but that poll's validity has since been discredited because it over-weighted West Tennessee.

Hilleary, who won six tough primary and general elections between 1994 and 2002, is seeking to go back to Washington to continue the conservative leadership he showed as a member of the House. As a representative of Tennessee's Fourth District, Hilleary built a reputation as a straight-talking conservative who fought hard to lower taxes, reduce wasteful spending, and protect innocent life.

In Tennessee, Hilleary stood up to Republicans and Democrats who tried to raise taxes and he worked hard to help elect Republicans to state and local office, campaigning all across the state and taking on Democrats from John Wilder and Jimmy Naifeh on down.


--- This is interesting because this is an area where Ed was supposed to be "unbeatable" (according to his people) and his campaign staff has been working the area for a couple of weeks to build up momentum specifically for this poll, even bragging about it. Maybe Ed should have insisted on using his preferred pollster, Harold Ford Jr. instead of the vote counters Sullivan County GOP used... :)

According to the grapevine, Beth Harwell recieved half of the votes that Bob Corker had despite not yet entering the race, building a campaign team or raising money. I think this should be taken as very positive news for Beth and of grave concern to Corker.