CPAC Poll: McCain a Tough Sell to Conservatives

MANASSAS, Va., Feb. 9 /Christian Newswire/ -- Richard A. Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, today released the results of a true random poll of 1,000 conservative activists attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. CPAC is the nation's largest annual gathering of conservatives, and was chosen by former Gov. Mitt Romney as the place where he announced his withdrawal from the GOP presidential race on Thursday.

The first question asked of the 1,000 conservative activists was: "In your opinion, is Senator John McCain a true conservative?"

The results:

Yes 197 (19.7%)
No 595 (59.5%)
Undecided 208 (20.8%)

The second question was: "If Senator John McCain is the Republican nominee, I will…"

The results:

- 299 29.9% "strongly support McCain"
- 279 27.9% "I will vote for McCain, but do not expect to work or contribute"
- 35 3.5% "I will vote for the Democratic nominee"
- 90 9.0% "I will vote for a conservative third party candidate if one is on the ballot in my state"
- 40 4.0% "I will not vote"
- 257 25.7% "I am undecided at this time--I need to see if Senator McCain reaches out to conservatives in a serious and meaningful way"

"From these results, it is clear that Senator McCain has a challenge in gaining the conservative support he needs in order to win the general election," says David Franke of ConservativeHQ.com. "Only 3 in 10 conservative activists strongly support him. Even if you add in the people who will limit their activity to voting for him, and all of the undecided conservatives (not likely), he will have only 83.5% of the conservative vote. Historically, the Republican presidential candidate needs more than 80% of the conservative vote in order to win. The poll results show he can possibly reach that level of conservative support, but it will be dauntingly hard."