US congresswoman Michele Bachmann said Sunday that her victory in the Iowa straw poll was a "big message sent to Washington" by Americans frustrated with the sputtering economic recovery.
"People really saw the punch to the gut that America got this last week and they really want someone that they can trust, that they believe in, who's actually going turn the economy around," she told ABC television's "This Week."
She appeared to refer to the first-ever downgrade of the US credit rating by Standard and Poor's, which stripped the country of its sterling AAA rating earlier this month because of Washington's ballooning debt and partisan gridlock.
Bachmann won Saturday's Ames Straw Poll in Iowa, an unscientific, nonbinding poll seen as an early indicator of which candidates are likely to do well in the first batch of nomination battles early next year.
She was closely followed by small government champion Representative Ron Paul, while former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty came in a distant third, a poor showing that led him to drop out of the 2012 White House race on Sunday.
Her victory was overshadowed by Rick Perry's formal entry into the race as the Iowa poll was under way. The Texas governor looks set to become a frontrunner by appealing to fiscal and social conservatives.
Bachmann sought to push back against critics who say she is too close to the ultraconservative Tea Party movement, claiming she could appeal to a wide range of voters.
"There isn't an event that I do that I don't have people come up to me who say: 'Michele, I'm a Democrat and I'm voting for you, I'm an Independent and I'm voting for you.'" she told ABC.
"And I think it's because I'm talking about what people really care about, and that's turning the economy around and job creation."
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