Vice President JD Vance remains the overwhelming favorite among conservative grassroots activists to carry the MAGA mantle into 2028, capturing 53 percent of the CPAC straw poll. But the more interesting number belongs to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who rocketed from a mere three percent in 2025 to 35 percent this year.

Nobody else came close. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump Jr. each pulled two percent. Senator Ted Cruz, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Senator Rand Paul, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard all registered at one percent, the Daily Mail reported.

The results paint a clear picture: the 2028 conversation, at least among the activist base that gathers at CPAC every year, is a two-man race. And one of those men is gaining ground fast.

Vance holds the throne, but the margin is shrinking

Vance's 53 percent is commanding by any normal political standard. In the context of CPAC straw polls, where enthusiasm runs hotter than in general election polling, it signals genuine loyalty from the conservative base. But it also represents a decline from the previous year, when Vance earned 61 percent.

An eight-point drop isn't a crisis. It is, however, a signal. Vance didn't speak at the conference this year, which may partially explain the softening. In grassroots politics, presence matters. Activists want to see you, hear from you, feel like you showed up for them. Skipping the room has a cost, even if it's modest.

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp framed it plainly when discussing what it takes to be the next standard-bearer:

"If you want to follow in Trump's footsteps, you have to have these virtues of being available, being quotable, being interactive with media, being interactive with activists, being interactive with leaders in the community."

That's not a veiled shot at anyone. It's an observation about how political capital is built and maintained in the populist conservative movement. You don't inherit the base. You earn it by showing up.

Rubio's rise is the real story

Going from three percent to 35 percent in a single year is not a gradual climb. It's a vault. Rubio's surge among CPAC attendees reflects something concrete: the man has been doing the work. His tenure as Secretary of State, particularly his role executing President Trump's foreign policy agenda, has transformed how conservative activists view him.

This is worth pausing on. Rubio ran for president in 2016 and flamed out as the establishment's last hope against Trump. He spent years rebuilding credibility with the populist wing of the party. Now, by delivering results in a role that matters to the base, he's converted skeptics into supporters at a pace that few would have predicted even twelve months ago.

The lesson is straightforward: in the post-Trump GOP, loyalty to the agenda is the currency. Rubio earned his 35 percent not through speeches about conservatism in the abstract but through execution on the issues activists care about.

The rest of the field barely registers

The bottom of the poll tells its own story. Consider the names sitting at one or two percent:

• Ron DeSantis, who once polled as Trump's most formidable challenger, landed at two percent. He has indicated he is considering another run after unsuccessfully challenging President Trump in the 2024 primary. The activist base doesn't appear interested in a sequel.
• Donald Trump Jr. tied DeSantis at two percent, suggesting that the Trump name alone, without an official role in the administration, doesn't automatically transfer political support.
• Ted Cruz, Pete Hegseth, Rand Paul, and Tulsi Gabbard all sat at one percent, effectively registering as background noise in the 2028 conversation.

DeSantis's number is particularly striking. He didn't speak at the conference this year, which certainly didn't help. But even accounting for absence, two percent among the very activists who once fueled his national rise suggests that the 2024 primary did lasting damage. Running against Trump and losing didn't just cost him a nomination. It cost him standing with the base that's now choosing between the people who stood with the president.

What CPAC tells us, and what it doesn't

Straw polls at activist conferences are not predictive instruments. They measure intensity and enthusiasm among a self-selected group of highly engaged conservatives who pay money and travel to attend. This year's CPAC took place in the Dallas suburb of Grapevine, Texas, at the Gaylord Texan hotel and convention center, a shift from the usual location outside Washington, D.C. That geographic move may have influenced who showed up and who didn't.

President Trump himself did not appear at the conference, choosing instead to spend the weekend at Mar-a-Lago as the war in Iran continues. His absence underscores an obvious reality: the sitting president has more pressing concerns than working a straw poll. But it also meant the event operated without its gravitational center, making it a purer test of who generates enthusiasm on their own.

What these numbers do tell us is where energy is flowing in the conservative movement. And right now, it's flowing toward Vance as the presumptive heir and Rubio as the most credible alternative. Everyone else is fighting for relevance.

The 2028 dynamic is already taking shape

Two and a half years is an eternity in politics. Administrations succeed or stumble. Foreign crises reshape priorities. Cabinet secretaries either accumulate credibility or burn through it. Nothing about these numbers is locked in.

But the structural reality is becoming harder to ignore. The conservative base wants continuity. It wants someone who carried the Trump agenda forward, not someone who positioned against it and now wants back in. Vance and Rubio both fit that description. DeSantis, for all his policy accomplishments in Florida, does not.

The 2028 primary, when it arrives, will be a referendum on a simple question: who is best equipped to continue what Trump built? CPAC's activists just gave their early answer. Vance leads. Rubio is closing. And the rest of the field is running out of oxygen.