Sen. Rand Paul convincingly wins CPAC presidential straw poll
(CNN) - Sen. Rand Paul easily won the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, giving the potential White House candidate an early boost with the Republican base ahead of the 2016 election.
It was the second-straight year the Kentucky lawmaker topped the poll at the annual gathering, notching 31% support.
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Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was second with 11%, followed by conservative firebrand Ben Carson.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, never popular with many in the party's conservative base, was fourth with 8% support.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who for a time gave Mitt Romney a run for his money with conservative voters in the 2012 presidential race, rounded out the top six.
CPAC is the largest annual gathering of conservative leaders and activists and is a must-attend cattle call for GOP presidential hopefuls looking to pass the right-wing litmus test.
Polling indicates no real frontrunner among the potential GOP contenders so far. The next race for the White House officially doesn't get under way until after November's midterm election, and it's fair to say presidential surveys this early are often heavily influenced by name recognition.
Still, the straw poll was a strong sign for some and a troubling one for others.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, who finished second last year - just two points behind Paul at 23% - fell to a disappointing 6%. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who fired up the crowds Friday morning, received only three percent.
Though Cruz was a distant second, his 11% was up 4 points from his showing last year.
Sen. Paul said in a statement that he was grateful for the support, touching on his libertarian themes of individual rights and standing up for the Constitution.
"Thank you and onwards to victory," he said.
Paul, whose libertarian fight in the Senate is often met with a tepid response, spoke before an audience Friday that treated him like a rock star.
The son of former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the first-term senator is eager to expand his base and expand the GOP in general.
He's been aggressively trying to broaden the party by talking about the need to include not only libertarians, but even Democrats and minority voters that don't traditionally fall in the GOP column.
But he wasn't trying to hammer home that message on Friday. His remarks were mostly catered to firing up the conservative libertarian crowd.
Paul supporters could be seen at all corners of the conference this week, easily spotted by their "I Stand With Rand" stickers and signs.
With representatives from all 50 states, 2,459 people participated in the straw poll. As is usually the case, it was a very young voting group, with 46% of the voters between 18 and 25 years old, and overwhelmingly male, at 63%.
CNN's Steve Brusk, Conor Finnegan, Ashley Killough and Peter Hamby contributed to this report.
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Nooooo..... not the crazy Paul. We want Ron Paul.Signed, Educated Americans who see through the democrap and retardican politic agendas. He was cheated last election, and the clueless GOP used the obvious loser RoMONEY - what a disgrace to american voters, just like the failed voter win with Gore vs Bush... bush lost, yet the politics chose Bush using unheard of "electoral college votes" nobody in America actually cares about. We want an open vote for all people on the voters card, and we want VOTERS VOTES to count, and not be ignored as secondary votes for the president! Wake up people, get the facts and don't be tricked again....
Poll results tell you how fringe CPAC is. Rand Paul has absolute ZERO chance at any kind of popular vote.
If you Republicans want even the slightest of chances of winning the general election, you need to find some better candidates.
Wow!
He's right (I suppose) about the surveillance, but man, he sounds like Goldwater.
A retread loser wins a poll of losers. LOL! The GOP has to be most pathetic concept in the US of A today. 🙂
Rand Paul 2016 !! 🙂 Have a nice Presidency Mrs. Clinton..
He is the Aqua Buddha !
You can tell by his smile , his eyes show the divine inner soul of a reincarnated teacher who's mastered a sense of deep awareness of self and universe .
Rand Paul /Rand Paul 2016
Visit your inner child and trust your third eye !
How hysterical. Rand Paul. The poor Republicans.
hillary will beat paul or christie easily in 2016--with bill raising $100 million and carville pulling all the tricks, hillary wins in a landslide–book it!
31 % support?????????....rock star?????....
So Mr. Paul is now a defending two time champ of the Straw. And if the last round is any indication I'd say we are all in for a good time.
"A must attend for potential candidates". Why would a serious candidate want to lean over so far in order to curry favor with this group in order to pass 'their' litmus test? "All applicants MUST be acid proof. They must be very base".
Run, Rand, Run!!! It'll be loads of fun watching this guy make a fool of himself.
A vote for Rick Santorum is a wasted vote. The man is just in the race to run interference and insure that the 1% get their horse across the finish line....
Basically, the Republicans have nobody, nothing , nada, zip to put fare in 2016.
Hahahahahahahaha.
the blind leading the blind....i hope it is rand paul vs hilliary clinton....hilliary will clean his clock
To quote Tom Petty, "Even the losers get lucky some time."
I'm sure his Daddy's racist newsletter supporters are happy.
Yippee!!! Rand Paul is King of the Crackpots!
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Here is something much more interesting than anything concerning Rannie Baby ! !
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Two-panel cartoon -
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Panel 1 : At Grocery Checkout, "Sir, would you like your milk in a bag ?" . . . "Yes"..
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Panel 2. Checker takes cap off milk bottle and pours the milk into a plastic bag.
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Big Deal..... Irrelevant poll.
If you want real change, then Rand Paul is a great choice in 2016. Don't believe the mainstream media bashing him. Listen to him speak on youtube and other media to get the real picture of what he stands for and why.
The CPAC poll is an IQ test - in inverse proportion.
So he has almost a third of the insane fanatic vote.
Rand Paul is a very smart level headed guy. I just wish the conservatives didn't get to him so much. I like his views on government spending and his libertarian leaning principals that try to focus on making abortion and gay right NOT part of the presidential platform.