N.C. Tea Party Throwing Support to Gingrich | News

Mitt Romney may have won Florida's Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, but he got trounced by tea partyers in North Carolina.

In a straw poll that the N.C. Tea Party sponsored to let North Carolinians "participate" in the primary, Newt Gingrich won, Rick Santorum was a close second and Ron Paul edged out Romney for third. The only candidate whom Romney beat was the faceless "other."

Romney has consistently fared poorly in other primary polls done by the N.C. Tea Party, said Nathan Jones, a former GOP state Senate candidate from Winston-Salem who organized the latest poll.

"He has never really broken above 15 or 20 percent," Jones said. "I don't pretend to know the thoughts of everyone who votes. A lot of the common thinking centers on the notion that some of the voters don't consider Romney to have tea party values."

Nathan Tabor, the chairman of the Forsyth County Republican Party, said Romney's poor showing goes back to the health-care program that Romney instituted while he was governor of Massachusetts. Critics refer to the program, which requires individuals to buy health insurance or pay a fine, as "Romneycare." And, they say, it is similar to "Obamacare," or the health-reform law enacted under President Barack Obama.

"Although he states he's a conservative, people don't trust him," Tabor said.

NOTE: This story was written by Bertrand M. Gutierrez and originally appeared in The Winston-Salem Journal. To read the full article, click here.