Vance won 53 percent of the vote, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting 35 percent of the vote.
Vice President JD Vance has won the CPAC straw poll for the Republican party nomination in the 2028 presidential election. Vance won 53 percent of the vote, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio getting 35 percent of the vote. All other candidates in the straw poll only pulled single digits.
Others that were entered the poll and were able to get one or two percentage points included Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump Jr, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), DNI Tulsi Gabbard, as well as Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
The straw poll comes as Rubio as well as Vance have both been seen as the next person to the lead the GOP, although Vance has been the clear favorite in different polls on the topic. According to a recent Daily Mail/JL Partners poll, support for Rubio has been growing in the last few months as the second-place contender for the 2028 nomination. Vance had 50 percent in the poll among GOP primary voters and Rubio had 17 percent.
Like the straw poll at CPAC, no other Republican contender broke into double digits. In a hypothetical match-up, Vance would defeat Rubio 62 to 27 percent among primary voters. Rubio has previously said that he will not be running on the ticket for president if Vance seeks the GOP nomination in 2028.
“If JD Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” Rubio said in an interview from December. Back in October, Trump suggested that he would want to see Vance as well as Rubio on a presidential and VP ticket come 2028.
“We have JD [Vance] obviously. The vice president is great, Marco [Rubio] is great. I’m not sure if anybody would run against us. I think if they ever formed a group it would be unstoppable, I really do. I really believe that,” Trump said.
