Tom DeLay- Corporate Whore




Poll: DeLay Losing Support in Own District

Sunday. Jan 15,2005

HOUSTON - Barely one of every five of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's constituents would vote for him if the election were held now, according to a newspaper poll released Saturday.

The Republican congressman, who lost his leadership post because of felony money laundering charges against him, trailed Democratic rival and former congressman Nick Lampson in his southeastern Texas district, according to the poll of 560 registered voters conducted for the Houston Chronicle.

In polling conducted Tuesday through Thursday, 22 percent of respondents said they would vote for DeLay, 30 percent chose Lampson and 11 percent favored Republican-turned-independent former congressman Steve Stockman.

Lampson's campaign manager, Mike Malaise, said the poll suggests that "people in the district want a congressman who will make headlines for the right reasons."

DeLay's spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty challenged the validity of the poll and said the result is "contrary to the strong support we're seeing for Congressman DeLay throughout the district."

In 2004, DeLay defeated relatively unknown Democrat Richard Morrison with 55 percent of the vote, his lowest victory margin.

In the latest poll, only half of those who supported DeLay in 2004 said they would vote for him again.

The poll, conducted by Rice University and the University of Houston, has a margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The poll was conducted days after DeLay announced he would not try to regain his House leadership post under pressure from Republicans concerned about his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty this month to felony charges and is cooperating with investigators in a bribery probe focusing on several members of Congress and their aides.

In Texas, DeLay is charged with money laundering in connection with the transfer of $190,000 in corporate contributions through a Texas political action committee founded by DeLay to an arm of the National Republican Committee, which then contributed the similar amounts to GOP legislative candidates in Texas.

Republicans took control of the Texas Legislature after the 2002 elections, and pushed through a congressional redistricting plan favorable to the GOP that DeLay engineered.

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