Vice President J.D. Vance is the overwhelming favorite to be the 2028 GOP presidential nominee, according to a straw poll conducted at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
“Sixty-one percent of CPAC’s 1,022 attendees said they would support Vance as the future GOP standard bearer,” The Hill noted.
12 percent said they would support Steve Bannon, while seven percent voted for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
@VP @JDVance wins @CPAC 2028 straw poll with 61%@Bannons_WarRoom 12%@RonDeSantis 7 pic.twitter.com/Ked1bCrlFj
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) February 22, 2025
From The Hill:
The same poll unsurprisingly showed Trump with a 99 percent approval rating with the staunchly pro-Trump crowd, with 95 percent saying they strongly approved.
Vance was the first speaker at this year’s CPAC, while Trump is set to close the annual gathering on Saturday.
Earlier this month Trump told Fox News declined to name Vance as his automatic successor, saying it was “too early.” However, Trump praised his vice president as “very capable” in the interview.
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“You guys are the conservative movement, you guys are the thought leaders, the opinion leaders. We asked folks who they thought would be the Republican nominee, who they preferred for the Republican for president in 2028. And who is it?,” Jim McLaughlin, president of McLaughlin & Associates Polls, announced at the conference.
“J.D. Vance. And why? Because he’s viewed as the closest thing to Donald Trump,” he added.
WATCH:
@CPAC STRAW POLL RESULT: When asked who they think should be the 2028 Republican nominee for president, CPAC attendees chose Vice President @JDVance.
JD Vance – 61%
Steve Bannon – 12%
Ron DeSantis – 7%
Marco Rubio – 3%
Elise Stefanik – 3%
Donald Trump Jr. – 2%
Tulsi Gabbard -… pic.twitter.com/rrefVnuzgN— CPAC (@CPAC) February 22, 2025
Fox News reports:
The straw poll was conducted among more than 1,000 attendees of the conservative conference, which kicked off on Wednesday and wraps up on Saturday following President Donald Trump’s planned speech.
McLaughlin noted that the straw poll has accurately predicted conservatives’ views and voting trends in previous years, including that Trump would win the 2024 primary and general election.
“You know how I knew Donald Trump was going to win the people in this room? Because when we did the CPAC polls over the years, and you had the mainstream media saying, you know, ‘Donald Trump couldn’t win again.’ Donald Trump was winning overwhelmingly, not by a little bit, overwhelmingly in every single CPAC poll. You guys knew he was going to win the primary. You all knew that he was going to win the general election, no matter what the Democrats threw at us,” he said.
This year’s straw poll overwhelmingly focused on Trump’s approval ratings since taking office, with a handful of results finding Trump’s approval sitting at 99% on various issues.
“The first few weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency have been the best for the modern conservative movement in my lifetime. What do you think about that?” McLaughlin said of one of the poll questions. “Well, 99% agreed with that. Think about that. We don’t see 99% numbers.”
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