The 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) started on Thursday and came to a close today. At the conference, they took a straw poll for the 2012 GOP primary.
You just thought last election was the longest election cycle in history. Try to last through this one.
Anyway, here are the results:
CPAC 2009 Straw Poll (PowerPoint)
- Mitt Romney: 20%
- Bobby Jindal: 14%
- Ron Paul: 13%
- Sarah Palin: 13%
- Newt Gingrich: 10%
- Mike Huckabee: 7%
- Mark Sanford: 4%
- Rudy Giuliani: 3%
- Tim Pawlenty: 2%
- Charlie Crist: 1%
- Undecided: 9%
Straw poll of 1,757 CPAC registrants, February 26-27th, 2009
First of all, here are some of the demographics of the participants. 52% described themselves as 'Students', 36% were non-students, and 13% were either co-sponsors of the event or affiliated with a co-sponsor (
i.e. FairTax, NRA, ACU, Eagle Forum, etc.).
57% of the voters were between the ages of 18 and 25. The next highest group was 26-40, at 16%. 12% were 41-55, 7% were 56-65, and 5% were over 65 years of age, and 2% were under 18.
I think that those figures explain Ron Paul's high performance. The large number of the college-age crowd, Paul's main demographic, must have had an impact on his vote total.
Just from looking at the answers to some of the questions, the crowd seems to have been more libertarian of bent, with not quite as much emphasis on social conservative issues. Hence the success of Romney and Paul, and the lower numbers for Huckabee and Palin.
An interesting poll, nevertheless, I'd rather wait a year or so before seeing any more presidential election polls...
