TRUMP DEFEATS DESANTIS AT CPAC CONFERENCE STRAW POLL
'We’re a nation in decline,' ex-prez said in keynote
Former President Donald Trump overwhelmingly won a CPAC straw poll for the 2024 Republican nomination, defeating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by a 40-point margin.
Trump topped DeSantis, 62% to 20%, in a Saturday poll of 2,028 Conservative Political Action Conference attendees, organizers said.
Trump was the keynote speaker Saturday at CPAC, held just outside Washington, D.C., in Oxon Hill, Md., where he was introduced as “the next president of the United States.”
“Thank you for the beautiful straw poll,” Trump said. “That was a big win.”
Businessman Perry Johnson was a distant third, with 5% of the vote. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who spoke at the conference on Friday, came in fourth, at 3%.
No other potential GOP presidential candidates garnered more than 1% of the vote, according to poll results.
The results were closely aligned with the support shown toward Trump throughout the first three days of the conference. Ninety-five percent of attendees participating in the poll said they approved of the job he did as president.
Trump scored higher in Saturday’s poll than he did at last year’s conference in Orlando, when he topped DeSantis by a 59-28% margin, but lower than last August in Dallas, when he had 69% of the vote to DeSantis’ 24%.
Many speakers on Saturday spoke favorably of Trump’s past presidency, including Keith Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former national security advisor to Vice President Mike Pence.
Kellogg asserted that the Russia-Ukraine war would not have occurred if Trump were still president. Similar remarks were also made by former acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, who said Trump was tougher on Russia than President Joe Biden.
Trump also addressed Ukraine, saying that NATO should be matching the United States’ contribution to their war effort.
In his speech, Trump likened today’s government to Marxism and socialism, saying “We’re a nation in decline.” He said Biden was “leading us into oblivion” and brought up the laptop scandal including his son, Hunter.
Referencing criminal charges that have been leveled against him, Trump said
that in contrast, “Nothing ever seems to happen” to Joe and Hunter Biden, and other Democrats, because “Democrats stick together.”
“The era of woke and weaponized government is over,” said Trump in his pitch for a second presidential term. “We will finish what we started.”
But Trump also went after his own party, particularly those he considers to be “fake Republicans,” such as former House Speaker Paul Ryan; former Florida Gov. and 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush; and Karl Rove, a top staffer during the George W. Bush administration.
Trump also mentioned Utah Senator and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the presidency to Barack Obama in 2012, when speaking
about his Republican rivals.
“We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless,” Trump said, possibly in reference to former President George W. Bush, who ordered military action in Iraq and Afghanistan following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
He added, “People are tired of RINOs and globalists. They want to see America first. It’s not that complicated.”
Trump did, however, speak favorably of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a controversial farright congresswoman from Georgia.
At Saturday’s conference, there wasn’t much mention of DeSantis, who is widely seen as Trump’s top rival for the 2024 GOP nomination despite not yet officially declaring a White House bid. The Florida governor spoke at CPAC last February, but opted to skip this year’s event.
DeSantis spoke Thursday at the Club for Growth’s annual conference in Palm Beach, Fla., where the GOP’s top 120 donors gathered, the New York Post reported.
No reason was given for DeSantis’ absence, but the Post reported some politicians opted to stay away from CPAC this year due to sexual misconduct charges that have been leveled against CPAC head Matt Schlapp, by a former GOP male staffer.
Pence and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, two other possible Republican presidential candidates, skipped out on CPAC, but attended the Palm Beach conference as well, Fox News reported.
Both scored 1% (Pence) or lower in the CPAC straw poll.
DeSantis came in second for vice president in CPAC’s straw poll, garnering 14% of the vote.
Kari Lake, who lost the 2022 gubernatorial election in Arizona and spoke earlier in the day about how she recently filed a lawsuit challenging those results, topped the vice presidential poll, at 20%.
Haley, the only other possible candidate to break double digits, was third, with 10% of the vote.