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A majority of attendees at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) selected Vice President JD Vance as their preferred 2028 Republican presidential nominee.
According to CPAC’s straw poll of 1,600 attendees, 53 percent of those surveyed claimed that Vance would be their top choice to lead their party’s ticket in 2028.
However, support for the vice president’s nomination fell six points since last year’s straw poll, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s increased by 33 percent.
A total of 35 percent of this year’s respondents selected the secretary of state as their party’s preferred 2028 nominee, the survey reported.
Rubio’s increase in support comes amid his leadership on foreign policy and national security issues, particularly with his management of the Iran War and deposing the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, which has improved his standing with conservative voters.
While winning CPAC’s poll is not conducive to winning a nomination, voters ultimately appear divided on selecting which official will succeed President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement: the incumbent vice president who was selected by the commander-in-chief in 2024 to serve as his second-in-command, or the person who has masterfully carried out the president’s foreign policy agenda.
Other Republican candidates who received support in CPAC’s straw poll included Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis (two percent), Donald Trump Jr. (two percent), Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (one percent), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (one percent), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (one percent), Kentucky Rep. Rand Paul (one percent), and the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (one percent).
The poll comes as CPAC ended its four-day conference featuring speaking Republican officials and activists alike.
