Attendees at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference made clear they want to see former President Donald Trump run again in 2024, but Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis showed he could be the next rising star in the GOP.
Trump won the event’s presidential preference straw poll by a massive margin, hauling in 55% of the vote for those in attendance. DeSantis came in second in the poll, with 21% of CPAC attendees choosing him as their preference. The poll was based on who attendees would vote for if the presidential election was held today. All other candidates received single-digit support.
If Trump opted not to run for president in 2024, DeSantis became the clear preference of CPAC attendees, with 43% of the vote. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem came in second in a ballot without Trump, at 11%, while Donald Trump Jr. was the preference of 8% of attendees.
CPAC Presidential Straw Poll
If the election were held today who would you vote for?
Trump 55%
DeSantis 21%
Others in single digitsWithout Trump
DeSantis 43%
Noem 11%
Trump Jr 8%— PollWatch (@PollWatch2020) February 28, 2021
DeSantis, who spoke at CPAC Saturday, has become a rising star in the Republican Party in large part because of his more relaxed approach to combating the coronavirus pandemic. The event itself was being held in Orlando due to gathering restrictions in the nation’s capital, and DeSantis welcomed those in attendance to his “oasis of freedom” during his speech.
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“We are in an oasis of freedom in a nation that’s suffering from the yoke of oppressive lockdowns,” DeSantis said. “We look around in other parts of our country, and in far too many places, we see schools closed, businesses shuttered, and lives destroyed. And while so many governors over the last year kept locking people down, Florida lifted people up.”
Noem, who trailed DeSantis in the poll, also spoke to the CPAC crowd earlier in the event, decrying the critics to her own relaxed pandemic approach.
“The question of why America needs conservatives can be answered by just mentioning one single year, and that year is 2020,” Noem said. “Everybody knows that almost overnight we went from a roaring economy to a tragic, nationwide shutdown.”
Noem placed the blame for the country’s economic woes squarely on lockdowns, while touting her state’s approach of tracking hospitalizations instead of cases.
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“We never focused on the case numbers,” Noem said. “Instead, we kept our eye on hospital capacity. Now, Dr. Fauci, he told me that on my worst day I’d have 10,000 patients in the hospital. On our worst day, we had a little over 600.”
