With 15 months until polling day, and the actual primaries starting in roughly 6 months the republicans have held a poll within the state of Iowa, which traditionally is one of the first states to hold their primaries.

The full result of the poll can be seen here

The event itself, held at Iowa Sate University, was also attended by the National Rifle Association, and anti abortion groups (probably to remind the people there, and maybe a few of the candidates that this was a Republican party event)

What was surprising about the poll was, actually there were 2 things. First 2 of top candidates didn’t attend the event, where the vote took place, which raised about a million dollars for the Republican Party.

Both Rudy Giuliani and Senator John McCain did not take part, (with McCain choosing to campaign in New Hampshire instead) although their names were on the ballot along with (the still unannounced candidate of) former Senator Fred Thompson.

So the other surprise of the event was the low number of votes for these three got. Perhaps if they had they taken part in the event then they may have scored higher, but this time around they got the following;

Rudy Giuliani - 183 votes
Sen. John McCain - 101 votes
Fred Thompson- 203 votes

And to show you the scale of the victory Former Gov. Mitt Romney, here are the votes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place;

Mitt Romney - 4,416 votes
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee - 2,587 votes.
Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback - 2,192 votes.

One interesting side note of the poll is that Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, said that if he did not finish in the top 2 he would likely pull out of the race, which would make him the 2nd Republican to do so in this race (the first being Jim Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia)