At the recent June quarterly meeting of the State Republican Executive Committee, Chairman Munisteri went through a detailed report of the results of the RPT’s recent statewide survey on a potential RPT straw poll this fall. With this analysis, the SREC instructed the Chairman and RPT staff to come up with a feasibility study and make a recommendation to the SREC for a final decision.

After contacting the announced GOP Presidential campaign organizations, RPT staff issued a recommendation not to hold a straw poll due to a lack of commitment and interest from the gathered responses of the campaigns. Among the considerations, the staff felt that the lack of participants would severely hamper the party’s ability to ensure attendance and make it impossible to safeguard against a financial loss on the event. Additional factors included recent press reports that Florida was not receiving as much interest in its fifth presidential straw poll as expected and an announcement from the Romney campaign that they would not be participating in straw polls. As a result of this information, Chairman Munisteri agreed with the staff’s assessment and presented the recommendation to the SREC in a conference call. By a unanimous choice of those participating on the conference call, the decision was made that the Republican Party of Texas will not be holding a Presidential Straw Poll in 2011.

We thank all of the Texas Republicans who participated in the survey for the detailed feedback and suggestions we received.