Cruz won with 40 percent of the vote, while Rubio came in second with 30 percent. Donald Trump, who skipped the conference to attend a rally in “Witchita, Kanasas,” received 15 percent of the vote, while John Kasich, the Prince of Light and Hope, received 8 percent. Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg received 1 percent of the vote while Hillary Clinton received .3 percent, to the unending chagrin of CPAC’s pollster.
In other CPAC straw polling news, two-thirds of voters wanted the next president to be a “classical Reagan conservative,” which makes sense because a “classical Reagan conservative” can mean whatever you want it to mean. Eighty-two percent said that Congress should block the appointment of whomever President Obama nominates to the Supreme Court, while 72 percent said Republicans in Congress were not working hard enough to thwart the president’s policies. When it came to “dealbreakers” for Republican candidates, CPAC voters treated Trump with passive aggression: 38 percent said expanding Medicaid under Obamacare was a dealbreaker, while 36 percent said they would not support a presidential candidate who supported eminent domain. The number of people who voted in the straw poll was 2,659.