The Western Conservative Summit recently held a straw poll of potential 2024 Republican presidential candidates. It asked respondents to vote for the top contenders for the GOP nomination, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
The poll was conducted at this weekend’s 2021 Western Conservative Summit at the Centennial Institute, which is Colorado Christian University’s public policy think tank. The following are the somewhat surprising results:
- Ron DeSantis — 74.12%
- Donald Trump — 71.43%
- Ted Cruz — 42.86%
- Mike Pompeo — 39.35%
- Tim Scott — 35.58%
- Kristi Noem — 29.92%
- Tom Cotton — 29.92%
- Rand Paul — 27.76%
- Donald Trump Jr. — 24.8%
- Mike Pence — 21.56%
- Josh Hawley — 20.22%
- Dan Crenshaw — 20.22%
- Nikki Haley — 19.14%
“The top five candidates, in order of most approval to least, were: Ron DeSantis (74%), Donald Trump (71%), Sen. Ted Cruz (43%), Mike Pompeo (39%) and Sen. Tim Scott (36%),” the summit’s press release stated. “Former Vice President Pence came in tenth place.”
Furthermore, the Western Conservative Summit also polled the most important issues for those who attended the conference.
“Question two asked attendees to mark any of 25 policy issues as most important to them,” the statement continued. “The top five most important issues were: Immigration/Border Security (82%), Election Integrity (79%), Religious Freedom (75%), Federal Budget/Deficit (74%) and Gun Rights (74%).”
The following were the results:
- Immigration/Border Security — 82.43%
- Election Integrity — 79.46%
- Religious Freedom — 74.86%
- Federal Budget, Debt & Deficit — 74.32%
- Gun Rights — 73.78%
- National Defense — 71.08%
- Energy Independence — 70.54%
- Education — 61.89%
- China/Russia — 60.81%
- Life/Abortion — 55.68%
- Media Bias — 55.68%
- Criminal Justice — 37.84%
- Transportation & Infrastructure — 35.95%
- Health Care — 33.78%
- Housing/Homelessness — 21.89%
- Antifa/Black Lives Matter — 20.81%
- Medicare/Medicaid — 19.19%
- Marijuana/Drug Addiction — 18.92%
- Police Reform — 12.43%
- Race and Racism — 10.81%
- COVID — 9.19%
- Environment/Climate Change — 8.65%
- Diversity, Equity & Inclusion — 5.68%
- LGBTQ — 4.86%
A CPAC straw poll conducted earlier this year pitted the candidates head-to-head. Donald Trump came out on top as 55% of respondents said that they would vote for the former president, followed by 21% for DeSantis, and 4% for South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
The Western Conservative Summit’s poll shows that Donald Trump is still a force to be reckoned with in the Republican Party, but a broad coalition of conservatives also believe that DeSantis should be a no-brainer to run for the ticket’s nomination in 2024.
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