Trump wins 2023 CPAC straw poll with 62%
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wins second place with 20%
Former President Donald Trump won the CPAC presidential election straw poll today with 62% of the vote. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came in second with 20%. The annual conservative conference was held in Washington D.C. this year.
Ronald Reagan won the first CPAC presidential straw poll in 1976 with 77% of the vote, but didn’t win the Republican Party nomination until 1980. In 1987 Jack Kemp won the poll with 68% but lost the 1988 Republican nomination to George H.W. Bush. Ted Cruz won the 2016 poll with 40% before Trump won the nomination.
For 32 years no candidate won a majority at the conference until Trump won 82% as a sitting president in 2019.
Four other CPAC polls have been taken since Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020. In each, DeSantis’ votes ranged between 21% and 28%. Trump’s votes ranged between 55% and 70%.
Today Trump posted a social media poll from the Truth Social page of Real America’s Voice that showed him winning 98%.
Recent presidential polls posted by RealClearPolitics indicate that right now Trump would easily beat DeSantis for the Republican Party nomination. But DeSantis has a better chance than Trump of winning a general election in swing states.
The latest presidential poll by Roanoke College shows Trump defeating DeSantis for the Republican nomination in Virginia 39% to 28%. It shows Biden defeating Trump in a general election 47% to 46%. But it shows DeSantis defeating Biden 48% to 43%.
A recent poll in Arizona shows Trump getting nearly double the votes of DeSantis in a Republican primary, but also shows Trump losing to Biden by two points in a general election and DeSantis defeating Biden by a point.