Results Are In For CPAC 2028 Straw Poll

However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears to be gaining ground on Vance.

Vance tallied about 53 percent of the vote out of approximately 1,600 attendees.

Rubio finished second at about 35 percent.

Nobody else had more than two percent.

2026 CPAC STRAW POLL: GOP PRIMARY

🟥 JD Vance: 53% (-8)
🟥 Marco Rubio: 35% (+33)
🟥 Ron DeSantis: 2% (-5)
🟥 Trump Jr: 2%
🟥 Ted Cruz: 1%
🟥 Pete Hegseth: 1%
🟥 Rand Paul: 1%
🟥 Tulsi Gabbard: 1%

(+/- shift vs 2025 CPAC Straw Poll)

McLaughlin | 3/28/2026 pic.twitter.com/OeZDEArphZ

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) March 29, 2026

Reuters has more:

CPAC, ​which is holding this year’s event in Grapevine, Texas, draws heavily from the Republican Party’s conservative wing. Its annual ​straw poll is not necessarily a reliable predictor of the eventual nominee.

But the poll offers a ⁠snapshot of where the energy currently lies among core supporters of President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, also known as ​MAGA. Trump, currently serving his second term, is not eligible to run again in 2028.

Paul Empson, a 58-year-old accountant and evangelical Christian ​from Fort Worth, Texas, said he voted for Vance because he sees him as aligned with the MAGA movement and was drawn to the vice president’s frequent references to the Christian faith.

“I wasn’t real sure about him at first, you know, like he’s inexperienced, but I’ve seen everything he’s ​done,” Empson told Reuters. “He’s a real, genuine person, and he’s also willing to proclaim his faith in Jesus Christ in public.”

According to the outlet, Vance won last year’s CPAC straw poll with 61 percent of the vote.

Rubio was a distant fourth place with about three percent.

War Room host Steve Bannon tallied around 12 percent, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had about seven percent.

The growing comfort with Marco Rubio among conservatives was captured in CPAC’s annual straw poll of potential 2028 contenders. After barely registering in the informal survey last year, 35% of attendees at this year’s event said they wanted him to be the party’s next nominee,…

— CNN (@CNN) March 29, 2026

The Hill shared further:

Vance has been seen as the heir apparent to Trump since becoming his running mate in 2024, but the president’s recent praise of Rubio’s diplomatic work has introduced fresh speculation over who may carry the party torch once Trump leaves office.

“Trump knows this is playing in the backdrop, and he’s struggling with it,” one Republican fundraiser of the debate on who might succeed Trump atop the GOP and MAGA told The Hill. “That’s why he keeps asking people what they’re thinking.”

Vance has dismissed the notion that he and Rubio are rivals, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity in November: “I don’t feel like that at all.”

“People have asked me, ‘Do you see Marco as a rival?’ And first of all, if either of us end up running, it’s a long ways in the future, and neither of us is entitled to it. So I think it would be ridiculous for me to say Marco is a rival. No, Marco is a colleague,” he said at the time.

A month later, Rubio told Vanity Fair he would be “one of the first people to support” Vance if the vice president decided to run for the White House.

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