Former President Donald Trump teased a possible 2024 presidential run at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando on Saturday.

“We did it twice, and we’ll do it again,” Trump said, falsely claiming that he won the 2020 presidential election, before hinting: “We’re going to be doing it again a third time.”

And if the CPAC straw poll results are any indication, if the 45th president indeed runs again, he may have no trouble clinching the Republican nomination.


What You Need To Know

  • Former President Donald Trump won the 2022 CPAC straw poll of preferred 2024 Republican presidential candidates with an overwhelming 59% of the vote

  • Trump bested his next closest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, by nearly 30 points

  • However, in a separate poll of 2024 Republican candidates that did not include Trump, DeSantis led the pack of preferred candidates with an overwhelming 61% of the vote

  • Nintety-seven percent of respondents to the CPAC poll said that they approved of the job Trump did as president, with 85% saying they'd support Trump's nomination if he ran for president again in 2024

Trump won the informal poll, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, with 59% of the vote, an overwhelming majority of respondents. Trump’s 59% is up from 55% in last year’s Orlando CPAC straw poll — but was a far cry from the 70% he garnered at the 2024 straw poll at Dallas’ CPAC event in July. 

The former president bested his next closest competitor — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a rising star in the party — by nearly 30 points, but DeSantis was the only other candidate to receive double-digit support. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo finished in third with 2% of the vote. 

No other Republican — including former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and newly minted Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin — finished with greater than 1% of the vote. 

Other potential 2024 hopefuls fared similarly: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (0.3%), Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley (0.2%), former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (0.1%) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (0%).

But in much more promising news for the Florida governor, in a poll which featured a list of 2024 Republican candidates that did not include Trump, DeSantis led the pack of preferred candidates with an overwhelming 61% of the vote.

Pompeo tied for 2nd with Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., with 6% of the vote, Sen. Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem each garnered 3%, and Haley and Youngkin got 2% of the vote apiece. On that list, Pence also received 1% of the vote.

Nintety-seven percent of respondents to the CPAC poll said that they approved of the job Trump did as president, with 83% saying they "strongly" approved and 15% "somewhat" approving. Three percent of respondents disapproved. In that same poll, 99% said they disapproved of the job President Joe Biden is doing as president, 98% "strongly," with 1% approving.

Eighty-five percent of respondents to the CPAC poll said they'd support Trump's nomination if he ran for president again in 2024.