Gowdy Leads, Lee Close Behind in Fountain Inn Straw Poll

Last night, the Fountain Inn Chamber of Commerce and Fountain Inn Rotary Club hosted a fourth congressional debate with Myra Ruiz from WYFF moderating.  The results of the straw poll held after the debate are as follows (sections is in order of percent vote).

Trey Gowdy

Trey gathered 31% of the vote after the debate.  This is not all surprising as he has been working hard and building a lot of name recognition.  Of all the candidates, he has not been shy when it comes to attacking Inglis.  Given his fund raising totals and the perceived street cred obtained by those numbers, he may be in the final two.

Jim Lee

As the title says, Lee came in second with 27%.  This looks good for Jim and shows that his ground game and solid performance last week in the WORD radio debate is cashing in.  If Jim can continue to build this momentum, watch out.

David Thomas

I have been hearing rumors that Thomas’ Senate seat may be on the line if he performs poorly in his own district.  Unfortunately, for Thomas, polling in 3rd with 20% in his backyard could be the beginning of the end for him in politics.

Christina Jeffrey

Jeffrey brought in 15% after the Boiling Springs Tea Party issued a “Red Alert” call to action yesterday.  She is polling a little better than I expected.  We are waiting to see if the other Tea Parties will get behind her, but our sources say that is not likely.

Bob Inglis

Bob, Bob, Bob.  What else can we say than he brought in 7% of the vote.  Oh yeah, did we mention the democrats are likely not to vote in this election since they have multiple candidates in the governors race they covet so dearly?

You can read more at the Greenville News.

Event – Rally for Jim Lee

The Jim Lee campaign is hosting a rally at GattiTown Friday, March 5th  at 5pm for a Listening / Watch Party for the NewsRadio WORD Debate.

First 100 people get in FREE.

Jim is running for South Carolina’s Fourth Congressional District.

SC 4th Congressional Poll Results are in…

At midnight on February 5th, 2010, polling closed for our SC 4th Congressional District Poll.  It was open for a week and we had a variety of responses and general comments on the race.

We did our best to market the poll via Twitter and Facebook and other means to help promote each of the candidates fairly.  You can see screen shots below.

I would love to say that internet polling was accurate.  If that were the case Ron Paul would have been President.  Given the amount of traffic we received compared to the number of votes, I would hope this was a fair indication of the people in the 4th Congressional District.

Without further delay, here are the results…

36% – Jim Lee
18% – Trey Gowdy
18% – Bob Inglis
18% – Christina Jeffrey
07% – David Thomas

My biggest surprise is the indecisiveness for the potential runoff candidate.  With Gowdy, Inglis, and Jeffrey all tied for 2nd, this may be the largest battle.  Between these three candidates, you see the outside Ron Paul supporters backing Jeffrey who has been threatening to censor individuals recently on Facebook and a potential split between the establishment candidates of Inglis and Gowdy.

This is a race I have been looking forward to seeing play out and it will only get more interesting the closer we get to June.  What do you think about these results?

Congressional Campaign Hires Jindal Fundraiser

Today, the Jim Lee campaign announced the hiring of Adam Alonso to lead the teams fundraising efforts.

Alonso was responsible for Bobby Jindal’s fundraising efforts for Governor and most recently for a gubernatorial candidate in New Mexico, Janice Arnold-Jones.

A statement from the campaign is below.

We are proud to announce a new addition to the Jim Lee for Congress Campaign. We want to welcome onboard Adam Alonso and his team, The Cratos Group. DHSG has been successful in securing Mr. Alonso as a fundraiser for the campaign. Mr. Alonso’s work includes successful fundraising for Bobby Jindal. We have also formed our finance team which has hit the ground running with some initial success.

Things are ramping up at campaign headquarters. There is excitement and a continuous buzz as new volunteers join our group everyday. People believe in Jim’s message. “We are right on track for a victory in June,” says veteran political consultant Kerry Wood. “There are many components that go into winning a race. We are right on track with many aspects of the campaign and the final pieces are falling into place nicely with the addition of Mr. Alonso.”

If you would like to contribute to the Jim Lee for Congress campaign please visit our website www.JimLeeForCongress.com.

Please consider making a donation, whether it is $5 or $500.

The Fightin’ Fourth Year End Update

In South Carolina’s most conservative district, the filing deadline has come and gone.

This cycle has seen the incumbent come out with the gloves off, taking on his challengers and pledging to debate as often as possible.  He even sent out one piece that seemingly endorsed another candidate in the race causing one campaign to call for Inglis to withdraw.  It has even become personal with some spouses getting in on the fun, taking jabs at other candidates or the candidate bullying the spouse.  You know who we are talking about candidates!

For transparency sake, I am volunteering on Jim Lee’s campaign.  As some of you may know, I have been one of Inglis’ biggest critics since I started The Conservativist.  Just ask Inglis, I am his biggest fan, all sarcasm is intended.

Lets take a look at the financial reports for the Fightin’ Fourth’s candidates (last reporting cycle only) and don’t forget to vote in our poll below.

Bob Inglis

Donors:  142
Contributions:  $122,599.13
Expenses:  $61,973.48
Cash on Hand:  $308,291.74

Of Inglis 142 donors, 18 of them are PAC contributions.  They include the NRA, GE (Inglis loves their wind turbines), Fraternity & Sorority PAC (is this where Bob learns how to sing and dance?), Duke Energy, Northrop Grumman, Microsoft, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Exxon.

Trey Gowdy

Donors:  143
Contributions:  $88,340
Expenses:  $64,011.95
Cash on Hand:  $204,649.74

It appears the Advance America and Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough PAC donated to his campaign.  Surprisingly not on his donor list is Barry Wynn, who appeared on Inglis’ donor list.  Trey is expected to have several cases coming up in the next months, so expect to see his ads more frequently over the airwaves as his campaign time will be limited.

Christina Jeffrey

Donors:  13
Contributions:  $10,391.00
Expenses:  $17,907.33
Cash on Hand:  $16,261.28

Of Jeffrey’s 13 donors, only four (4) of them are from within the district!?  She’s obtained money from Georgia, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Michigan and more.  It comes as no surprise that Jeffrey Sewell is now consulting her campaign (look at the plugs she gets from SCHotline)  See FEC Data or with a timestamp for those who want to challenge my research.  What I do find interesting is that she is on her 4th or 5th consultant now.  She has paid Sewell and Cassidy from this cycle, Dark Horse Strategy, Saber Communications and Michael Thompson in previous cycles.

Jeffrey has paid Upstate Printing and Publishing ~$1,400.00 which is located at the same address as the Boiling Springs Tea Party, located at 278 Giles Dr. in Boiling Springs, SC.

Jim Lee

Donors: 11
Contributions:  $4,795.15
Expenses:  $2,787.88
Cash on Hand:  $4,146.73

Jim Lee’s funding is surprisingly down this quarter.  Lee’s candidacy is based on “We the People” meaning that he hasn’t been visiting with all of the big money donors in the area.  While working out of state on technology consulting projects, Lee has been knocking on doors and making phone calls to the electorate, building grassroots support.  The question remains whether or not this will result in votes come June.

We hear the campaign has a big announcement coming, but we don’t know any details at this time.

David Thomas

Donors:  36
Contributions:  $30,739.00
Expenses:  $27,789.32
Cash on Hand:  $91,173.66

Of all the candidates, Thomas is the only one with pending debt, $4,243.83.  We have learned in the last few weeks, validated with FEC data, that Richard Quinn & Associates is advising on his campaign.  FEC data shows it as polling data, but it will be interesting if the Quinn machine will come barreling through with large sums of money in the next few weeks.  At least we know we will see pro-Thomas materials on The Palmetto Scoop.

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