CPAC Vice President Poll Raises Eyebrows in Republican Party

Slowly but surely, the 2024 presidential race is growing.

On the left, there’s the almost-inevitable incumbent President, Joe Biden, who is likely to at least consider running again.   Thus far, he faces only one other opponent:  The newly-announced Marianne Williamson, who rose to prominence as a new age self-help author.

On the GOP side of things, there was the early entry by former President Donald Trump that was meant to freeze out other potential candidates…at least for some time.  At this point, only former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has officially announced her candidacy, but there isn’t a pundit on the planet who thinks Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is going to sit this one out.

With the lay of the land being what it is, there is certainly some space to speculate in these days, and CPAC’s poll of potential Vice Presidential candidates was just wild enough to get some eyebrows raised.

Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won a straw poll for the Republican vice presidential pick during the Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC) this weekend.

Among a field of 28 candidates, Lake won the poll with 20 percent of the vote, beating former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis received 14 percent of the vote, and Haley, who announced her bid for the White House last month, won 10 percent.

But there’s a catch, of course.

Lake, who was also a featured speaker at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan Dinner over the weekend, has refused to accept her loss in the governor’s race last November and is challenging the election results in court.

Her official campaign Twitter account responded to the CPAC straw poll results by suggesting she’d be unable to serve in the role.

“We’re flattered, but unfortunately our legal team says the Constitution won’t allow for her to serve as Governor and VP at the same time,” it said.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has had a rather public falling out with his former boss, making it rather unlikely that he’d be on any Trump or Trump-related ticket.