Trump wins CPAC 2024 presidential straw poll; DeSantis places a distant 2nd place

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Monday, February 28, 2022

Former President Donald Trump won the Conservative Political Action Conference’s presidential straw poll over the weekend, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis placing a distant second.

Attendees of one of the largest annual conservative political conferences, this year held in Orlando, Florida, were asked to participate in the straw poll through an official CPAC app on their mobile devices. The polling was conducted by the Alexandria, Virginia-based firm McLaughlin & Associates.

Out of a survey of 2,574 CPAC attendees released Sunday, 59% said they would vote for Trump in their 2024 state Republican primary if held in the present day.

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DeSantis placed second with 28% of respondents, while former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo placed a distant third with 2% of the vote.

Several notable conservative figures received 1% support in the straw poll, including former Vice President Mike Pence, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

The survey also asked respondents to select which candidate they would support if Trump were not an option for the 2024 Republican primary. DeSantis received 61% support, while both Pompeo and Donald Trump Jr. finished with 6% support. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., Cruz and Noem each received 3% support. 

In another question, respondents were asked if Trump ran for president again in 2024 if they would support or oppose him for the Republican nomination.

The straw poll found that 85% of respondents would support Trump if he ran again as president, while 11% said they would oppose him, and 4% were unsure.

“Any questions?” tweeted Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, touting the straw poll results. “President Trump continues to grow the conservative MAGA movement, which includes growing his political dominance.”

Brittany Bernstein of The National Review cautioned that the CPAC straw poll “has not been a reliable indicator of future presidential prospects in the past.”

“Senator Mitt Romney of Utah won the straw poll in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2012, while [U.S. Senator Rand Paul] won the poll in 2014, 2015, and 2016,” wrote Bernstein.

At last July’s CPAC conference held in Dallas, Texas, Trump won the straw poll with 70% of the vote, followed by DeSantis with 21%. Again, several others got 1% or less.

Both Trump and DeSantis spoke at CPAC this year in Orlando, with Trump all but overtly announcing that he was running for president in 2024.

During his remarks, Trump spoke of conservatives’ “sleeping giant,” who he believed would help propel Republicans to victory later this year and in the 2024 presidential election.

“When we win, we will defeat this corrupt political establishment, we will save our Republic, and we will restore constitutional government of, by, and for the people,” he said.

“The Washington swamp knows we are coming to break their grip on power forever. That is why they are so desperate to stop us. They will go to any lengths.”

In his CPAC speech, DeSantis claimed that Democrats want to “marginalize the conservative half of the country” so they will be “powerless” to resist their “ideological aims.”

“The woke is the new religion of the Left, and this is what they have in mind,” stated DeSantis. “That’s why they want CRT [critical race theory] because they want to divide the country. That’s why they remove statues of Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt, take George Washington’s name off schools.”

“They want to delegitimize our founding institutions, and they want to replace that with their left-wing ideology as the foundational principles of our modern-day society.”