Update: CPAC released the results on immigration on Monday, March 7.
With much fanfare, the Conservative Political Action Conference released the results of its annual straw poll earlier this evening. Attendees were asked to weigh in on a number of subjects and could vote at kiosks and through a CPAC app. But while there's been much discussion of which presidential candidate was most favored by CPAC attendees (Ted Cruz), the media have missed a very curious omission from the results that could indicate which presidential candidate’s position on immigration is most favored.
The question which was not reported with the other results, captured below in a photo I took while attending CPAC, asked the following:
Which of the following comes closest to your view about illegal immigrants living in the United States?
Four choices were offered:
- They should be allowed to stay in the U.S. and eventually apply for citizenship
- They should be allowed to stay in the U.S. and eventually apply for legal status, but NOT citizenship
- They should be required to return to their home countries and follow U.S. immigration laws
- Unsure
It might be argued that Option 1 is closer to what Marco Rubio believes is the correct solution and that Option 3 is closer to what Ted Cruz and Donald Trump believe is the correct solution. Either way, this is a solid question and the results might be interesting despite CPAC's attendees not necessarily being representative of all Republican voters.
I’ve sent tweets to the entities involved in the straw poll — CPAC, the Washington Times, and pollsters Jim McLaughlin and Rob Schmidt of McLaughlin & Associates — but have yet to hear back. This post will be updated with the results should they be posted.
UPDATE: Jim McLaughlin of McLaughlin & Associates responded to my tweet in which I asked why the results had not been posted. He tweeted: "full results will be on the website for CPAC or you can go to our website on Monday".
UPDATE #2: When pressed again, McLaughlin told me via Twitter that there wasn't enough time to release all the CPAC results at CPAC, tweeting "Time, we had only 8 minutes so we couldn't release everything."