Senator Rand Paul Wins NRLC 2014 Presidential Survey

With his latest straw poll win, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul seems to be the early candidate to beat for the 2016 GOP nomination for President. Sen. Paul came out on top in the 2014 presidential survey taken at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference on March 15.

Paul topped the field, finding favor with 15 percent of respondents and edging out New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who received 13 percent. In a three-way tie for third place came Dr. Ben Carson, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and former Senator Rick Santorum each with 11 percent.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz popped in at only 8th place, getting 4 percent of the vote. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (9 percent) and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (8 percent) topped the Texan among voters. Florida Senator Marco Rubio hit the ninth spot at 3 percent, while Rep. Paul Ryan and former ambassador John Bolton tied for last place.

This is not the first time Senator Paul has made a good showing in these early days of consideration of who should next run for president on the Republican ticket.

Only a week ago, Paul won the straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), running away with the vote with 31 percent of respondents. The next closest candidate at CPAC was Sen. Cruz with 11 percent of the vote.

Senator Paul also won the CPAC straw poll in 2013.

Op top of that, Paul also won a Michigan poll in September of 2013. He took 36 percent of the vote in the Mackinac straw poll at a conference held on September 22. Paul easily bested Chris Christie who only earned 16 percent of the vote.

WPA Opinion Research reports that in this month’s New Hampshire poll 223 votes were cast of which 60 percent were cast by residents of New Hampshire. Of the attendees, 43 percent claimed to be “very conservative,” 39 percent said they were “somewhat conservative,” and 17 percent said they were “moderate.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com