If this were Family Feud, the host would slap the buzzer, the board would light up, and Diego Morales would already be heading backstage to collect his parting gift, a year supply of Rice-o-Roni, a case of Turtle Wax and a copy of our home game..
We ran an informal survey of more than 100 state convention delegates — most of them elected, most of them repeat attendees who’ve done this dance before — and asked them to tell us where the Secretary of State races stand heading into June 20. Standard caveats first, because I’m a lawyer and I can’t help myself: this was a self-selected online survey, not a scientific poll. Don’t bring the margins to a knife fight. But when every question pointed the same direction, the direction is the story.
And the direction is brutal for Morales.
On the Republican side, the race has quietly reorganized itself around the man who isn’t in the lead anymore. Max Engling tops the first-choice ballot at 36 percent, Dave Shelton sits second at 27, and Morales — the sitting Secretary of State, running for re-nomination — is buried in a three-way tie for third with “undecided” at 14 percent apiece. Engling isn’t just leading; he’s also the consensus backup, pulling nearly half of everyone’s second-choice picks. That’s the kind of number that wins floor fights.
Then there’s the part the campaign won’t want printed on a yard sign. Among delegates who weighed in on Morales specifically, 78 percent say they’re no longer supporting him. A majority, 53 percent, think he should withdraw. Fifty-seven percent agree with Treasurer Dan Elliott’s call for him to resign. And 57 percent flatly don’t believe he’ll win the nomination. Read that again: the people whose job is to renominate him largely want him gone and don’t expect him to make it.
Now, before anyone accuses me of cooking the books with one cleverly worded question — four differently worded questions all landed in the same ditch. You don’t get that kind of agreement by accident. You get it when a room has made up its mind.
That said, give the holdouts their due. There’s a hard core here — a dozen locked-in loyalists plus another 17 who strongly object to the resignation push. Some of those aren’t fans; they just don’t enjoy watching the party machinery shove a man out the door. Fairness and support aren’t the same thing, and roughly a fifth of this room is dug in for one reason or the other. Enough to be loud on the floor. Not enough to win.
What’s driving all this? Not policy. Asked for their single most important issue, a stunning 51 percent picked “party direction and leadership” — more than economy, inflation, and immigration combined. In a year the national party can’t stop talking about the border, these delegates rated it at 7 percent. This isn’t an issues election for them. It’s a referendum on who embarrasses the party least.
On the Democratic side, Beau Bayh is running away with it — 43 percent say he best represents where they want the party headed, doubling Blythe Potter — though a quarter picked “neither,” which suggests the famous last name buys recognition, not necessarily a fired-up base.
And keep an eye on Greg Ballard. Sixty percent of delegates think an independent Ballard run most helps the Democratic nominee, against just 4 percent who say it helps Republicans. Whatever his signature math turns out to be, this crowd has already decided whose votes he’s borrowing.
Survey said: the people who built this nomination are now the ones holding the exit door open.
Methodology: Informal online survey of 105 self-selected convention delegates. Not a scientific poll. Treat as a temperature read of the room, not a forecast.
