Trump squares up against DeSantis in straw poll, results were one-sided

According to a straw poll issued on Sunday, 59 percent of attendees at the CPAC conservative conference held in Florida wanted former Republican President Donald Trump to become the party’s presidential nominee in 2024. At the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Trump’s closest competitor, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, received 28 percent of the vote, underscoring Trump’s unrivaled hold on the Republican base.

CPAC tends to attract members from the Republican Party’s more conservative wing, and its surveys aren’t always accurate predictors of the final nominee. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, won a straw poll in Texas in 2016, yet Trump went on to win the nomination. Trump reportedly received 55 percent of the vote in Orlando last year, more than twice as many as DeSantis, who was also a prominent speaker. Last July, Trump got 70% of the vote at CPAC’s summer convention in Dallas, per report.

Trump has yet to indicate whether he will run for president in 2024, though he has made strong indications that he will, and he is already a powerful political force ahead of the November midterm elections. However, he is the subject of various legal probes that might jeopardize a presidential run. DeSantis received 61 percent of the vote in a straw poll that did not include Trump. DeSantis, a 43-year-old former lawyer, could easily wait until 2028 to run for president, according to many CPAC participants.