Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the winner of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference's presidential straw poll.
Cruz won 40 percent of the votes from the conservative gathering's 2,659 attendees who voted. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio took second place with 30 percent. GOP front-runner Donald Trump, who controversially canceled his appearance planned for Saturday morning, finished third with just 15 percent. Ohio Gov. John Kasich was fourth with 8 percent.
It's a boost for Cruz's argument that he's the leading conservative in the race, and comes on a day where he's hoping to pull out several wins in GOP caucuses. He was declared the winner of the Kansas GOP caucuses, which are seeing record turnout. Still to come are results in the Maine and Kentucky caucuses as well as the Louisiana primary.
Cruz gave a rousing speech to the annual gathering on Friday, attacking Trump for skipping CPAC and painting him as an inauthentic conservative.
"I think somebody told him Megyn Kelly would be here, or even worse he was told conservatives were going to be here," he joked, referencing Trump's feud with the popular Fox News anchor.
Cruz has worked to solidify support among the type of voters the popular conference attracts — younger, more libertarian-leaning voters. That's one reason that either Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul or his father, former Texas Rep. Ron Paul, have won the straw poll five of the last six years.
Here's the past CPAC straw poll winners:
1976: Ronald Reagan 1980: Ronald Reagan 1984: Ronald Reagan 1986: Jack Kemp 1987: Jack Kemp 1993: Jack Kemp 1995: Phil Gramm 1998: Steve Forbes 1999: Gary Bauer 2000: George W. Bush 2005: Rudy Giuliani 2006: George Allen 2007: Mitt Romney 2008: Mitt Romney 2009: Mitt Romney 2010: Ron Paul 2011: Ron Paul 2012: Mitt Romney 2013: Rand Paul 2014: Rand Paul
2015: Rand Paul
Domenico Montanaro contributed.
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