Former President Donald Trump easily won the Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) straw poll for the 2024 Republican Party presidential nominee on Saturday.
Trump received 62 percent support in the poll completed by more than 2,000 CPAC attendees, bringing him 40 points higher than the second-place candidate.
CPAC’s straw poll results were announced on Saturday just before Trump took the stage to address the conservative crowd at the Gaylord in Fort Washington, Maryland.
Here is the CPAC straw poll:
Trump at 62% followed by DeSantis at 20%.
Somebody named Perry Johnson came in third. pic.twitter.com/EiSfiW0Imp
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 4, 2023
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) came in second place, receiving 20 percent support in the straw poll. Although he has not officially launched a presidential bid, many political pundits expect DeSantis to announce his candidacy in late spring or early summer at the end of Florida’s current legislative session.
Trump’s victory in the straw poll on Saturday comes after he handily won straw polls at both CPAC events in Orlando, Florida, and Dallas, Texas, last year.
Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who tried to run for governor of his state, came in third place with five percent support.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, the only two declared candidates featured in the poll, received three and one percent support, respectively.
Other names in the poll included Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who all received one percent support.
Joseph Belnome, a 47-year-old New Jersey resident who attended CPAC, told the New York Post he cast his straw poll ballot for the former president because Trump “knows what he’s doing and when he gets in there he doesn’t have to have on-the-job training.”
“DeSantis is a good governor. I think he can be a good future president … I don’t think it’s his time yet. I think Trump has to finish what he started there,” Belnome added.
In the vice presidential candidate straw poll, former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake received the most support at 20 percent, while DeSantis was second place at 14 percent.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.
