Entrepreneur and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy claimed he was offered a second-place finish in the Conservative Political Action Conference‘s straw poll — but only if he paid up.
A senior campaign official for Ramaswamy told Politico the offer was upward of $100,000 and that the deal would include tickets and busing people to vote for the presidential hopeful in the straw poll. Ramaswamy talked about the offer made by CPAC during an interview on Fox Business Network’s Varney & Co. Monday, saying it showed him “how corrupt this system is.”
CPAC 2023: VIVEK RAMASWAMY COUNTERS MTG ON NATIONAL DIVORCE, SUGGESTS ‘REVIVAL’
Shocking to see how corrupt this process actually is. My #1 promise this year: I will expose the corruption and will not hold back pic.twitter.com/yOxLVw1OP1
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 6, 2023
“Do you know what is funny about this? I attended CPAC before. I didn’t know it works this way. A consultant calls my campaign shortly after we declared and said, ‘We can get you up to No. 2 on there if you pay a few hundred thousand dollars.’ I was shocked,” Ramaswamy said. “There are a lot of people making money, not only off of me but off of every presidential campaign.”
When asked if he paid to move up in the standings, he said he did not and that “that is fake. So why would I want to?”
A spokesperson for CPAC rejected the claims by Ramaswamy, telling the Washington Examiner that “Washington, D.C., is riddled with unscrupulous consultants who make false claims, including this one.”
“CPAC attendance was so strong that we had to close ticket sales on Friday due to concerns over capacity. And anybody with a rudimentary understanding of politics knows how a straw poll work: It takes organization and/or popularity for a candidate to do well. One thing is enduringly true about presidential politics: It takes both to get to the Oval Office,” the spokesperson added.
Ramaswamy finished with 1% in the straw poll, as former President Donald Trump led the poll with 62%, followed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) with 20%.
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The conservative conference was hurt by low attendance and a lack of sponsors, despite it returning to the Washington area for the first time since 2020. Several possible 2024 contenders, including DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), also skipped the conference. The three declared major GOP candidates for president, Trump, Nikki Haley, and Ramaswamy, all attended CPAC and gave speeches.
Ramaswamy’s speech at the conference centered on a call for a national revival rather than a national divorce, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has called for.
