Ohio State University ag engineer Randall Reeder morphs into Will Rogers as he oversees the No-Till Nation's GOP primary at the 20th annual National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis, Mo. (John Dobberstein photo)

Former Pennsylvania U.S. senator Rick Santorum won the No-Till Nation Primary Friday, Jan. 13, during a straw poll vote taken at the 2012 National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis, Mo.

Santorum received 32.5% of the votes in the Republican primary, well ahead of a trio of Republicans that finished within 4 percentage points of each other.

Former U.S. congressman Newt Gingrich took 20.5% of the vote, while U.S. congressman Ron Paul received 18% and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney grabbed 16.5% of the vote.

Trailing in the GOP primary were Texas governor Rick Perry at 9%, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman at 2.5% and Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann at 1%.

Nearly 88% of the votes cast at Friday's no-till primary were cast for Republicans. President Barack Obama received just 9% of the overall votes. The remaining 3% were write-in candidates.

The vote was held during the conference's annual Friday luncheon, following the political satire of Will Rogers as conducted by Ohio State University agricultural engineer Randall Reeder. A total of 228 votes were cast.

Other Farmers Cast Ballots

By way of comparison, the Dairy Herd Network recently asked readers in an information poll who they thought would receive the Republican presidential nomination.

About 37% expected Romney to win the nomination, followed by Santorum with 20%. As of last Friday, 143 people had responded to the poll.

In a Reuters survey released last week, some 74.7% of farmers and ranchers intend to vote for a Republican as president, despite a strong farm economy during President Barack Obama's Administration.

According to the random survey of 462 farmers and ranchers at the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual meeting in Honolulu, some 30.5% of the 367 farmers said they voted or will vote in a Republican primary this year backed Romney.

Santorum, who lost last week's Iowa primary to Romney by just eight votes, came in second with 25.9%.

Gingrich finished third at 18.8%, followed by Perry with 9.3% and Ron Paul with 6%.

Farmers in the survey also said they thought Republicans should control the U.S. Congress — although participants didn't echo the anti-incumbent sentiment that has been talked about in the lead up to November.

About 77% of farmers said they think Republicans should control Congress. Some 14% said they didn't know who should have power, and 5% said they would prefer Democrats in Congress.