2024 GOP Presidential Candidate Shocks Fox Host By Claiming You Can Pay to Rig the CPAC Straw Poll
Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur turned longshot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, told Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney on Monday that a consultant offered to make him the second-place finisher in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) straw poll if he forked over hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Ramaswamy boasted about the standing ovations he received during his address to the crowd at CPAC before making the allegation:
There’s also a funny little secret I learned, Stuart. I’m new to this as an outsider, one of the things you see as an outsider is how corrupt this system is. You know something funny about this, I’ve attended CPAC before, I didn’t know it works this way. A consultant calls my campaign shortly after I declared and says ‘Hey, we can get you up to number two on there [the straw poll] if you a pay a few hundred thousand dollars.’
“Really?” exclaimed Varney, after which Ramaswamy professed to be “shocked” by the offer, decried the American political campaign industry and promised to spend his campaign “exposing” it.
CPAC did not respond to a request for comment from Mediaite.
“I didn’t get to where I am by actually just getting exploited and I think the American people actually deserve to see the sausage getting made,” he added before boasting that he rejected the offer.
“Vivek, you are a dynamic and compelling candidate,” declared Varney before moving on to the next segment.
The CPAC straw poll is an unscientific survey of conference attendees.
Former President Donald Trump finished first at this weekend’s conference with 62 percent calling him their first choice to be the nominee in 2024. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished in second place with 20 percent of attendees supporting him.
Ramaswamy’s fellow longshot candidate, Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, came in third with 5 percent, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley was fourth with 3 percent, and then Ramaswamy got 1 percent, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
A CPAC spokesman responded to Ramaswamy’s allegations in a statement delivered to Mediaite:
Washington DC is riddled with unscrupulous consultants who make false claims including this one. CPAC attendance was so strong that we had to close ticket sales on Friday due to concerns over capacity. And anybody with a rudimentary understanding of politics knows how a straw poll work: it takes organization and/or popularity for a candidate to do well. One thing is enduringly true about presidential politics, it takes both to get to the Oval Office.
Watch above via Fox News.
