NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland – Attendees at a conservative conference outside of Washington, D.C., are making no secret of who they want to send to the White House in November.

The crowds at the Conservative Political Action Conference are dotted with red “Make America Great Again” hats and even costumes paying homage to former President Donald Trump. 

Yet the event is providing his supporters the opportunity to assess something less certain: who should run alongside the ex-president as he begins to lock down the GOP nomination.

Several of the names Trump has teased as being on his vice presidential short list are scheduled to speak at the confab, and attendees will get the chance to choose among a larger list of 17 possibilities in a rare straw poll.

Those results won’t be released until Saturday, the last day of the conference, but interviews the Washington Examiner conducted with almost a dozen attendees offered early insights into the most adored, and reviled, Republicans in the running for the 2024 veepstakes.

There is no love lost between Trump supporters and the two most polarizing choices on that list, Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-FL, and former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

“Oh God, no,” remarked Amy of Delaware, who asked for her last name to be kept private, when Haley came up.

Trump has sowed doubts she will be his vice presidential pick. As the last remaining Republican challenging him for the nomination, the two have stooped to taunts and name-calling, and she has turned off primary voters with her decision to court independents and soft Democrats in the early primary states.

“Put her on the Democrat ticket,” added Ann of Texas, who also took issue with her hawkish foreign policy views. “Anyone pushing war right now, no.”

A number of attendees had the same visceral reaction to DeSantis, with one describing him as a “turncoat” for running against Trump after he initially said he would sit out the presidential race this cycle. But the feedback was not entirely negative. 

Susie Miller, an attendee from Fairfax County, Virginia, praised DeSantis for his record as governor but felt 2028 would be better timing for him. “I want him to stay in Florida and finish the job because he will be a wonderful candidate for others to copy,” she said.

Meanwhile, Curtis Davis, 61, lamented that someone like DeSantis, who pitched himself as Trump without the baggage, had failed to capture the presidential nomination himself.

He and his wife, Susan, were also supportive of Haley, noting they were both veterans of the Air Force. Haley has not served in the military, but her husband is deployed.

DeSantis took his name out of contention in a private call with supporters on Wednesday, according to audio obtained by the Washington Examiner. Others, however, have kept the talk alive.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-FL, opened the event on Thursday with a speech towing the same hard line on NATO as Trump. Another hopeful, ex-Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, ended the day accusing Democrats of election interference over the criminal indictments against him.

“I’ve been clear about this when people first started asking me if I would do it,” Donalds told reporters at the conference. “I’d do the job because I just want to win.”

More contenders will have their chance on Friday to act as his surrogate. Gov. Kristi Noem, R-SD, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-OH, and Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY, the No. 4 Republican in the House, will deliver speeches at CPAC, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will headline the conference’s Reagan Dinner.

On Saturday, Trump himself will address the crowd hours before a pivotal primary in Haley’s home state of South Carolina.

The veepstakes extends far beyond a 15-minute speech at CPAC. Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott, R-SC, who quickly endorsed Trump after dropping their own bids for president, have stumped for him on the campaign trail.

Scott even appeared by his side at a Thursday town hall aired on Fox News. “You’re a much better candidate for me than you were for yourself,” Trump recounted telling Scott at a rally in South Carolina. “He was like a different person.”

But the CPAC straw poll, the first in at least a decade to include a question on the VP slot, will offer a window into how Republicans feel about Trump’s eventual pick.

The list includes often-floated names, such as Scott and Stefanik, but also longer shots, such as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-GA.

The common critique of Scott, who built his presidential campaign around restoring “Faith in America,” is that he is too much of a “gentle soul.” 

“He seems like a very nice man. To be president, you kind of have to be a jerk sometimes,” said Paul Johnson, an insurance professional from Morristown, New Jersey.

“I mean, would Tim Scott drop a bomb on Hiroshima?” added Johnson, 57, who doubted adversaries such as Russian President Vladimir Putin would take him seriously.

Donalds, a member of the Freedom Caucus in Congress, doesn’t have that image problem. “I think he’s unflappable,” said Barbara of Long Island, praising him as a principled voice for conservatism.

But attendees questioned whether he and others under consideration had enough experience and visibility to be his vice president. Donalds has served in Congress since 2021.

Stefanik, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in the House, has received backing for the role from within Trumpworld. On Thursday, Kimberly Guilfoyle promoted her on her podcast.

But she, too, faced questions about her visibility. “I mean, we’ve heard her. I just don’t think she has enough name recognition,” said Susan Davis of San Antonio.

Noem, meanwhile, was praised as a strong conservative – like DeSantis, she gained national prominence for resisting the COVID-19 protocols of 2020. However, multiple attendees raised allegations of an affair the Daily Mail reported in September. Her spokesman has denied those allegations.

Trump has survived scandals of his own. Last year, a jury ruled that he was liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. But Susan Davis asked whether it was worth inviting more scrutiny with Noem as his vice presidential nominee.

“Right out of the chute, do you need another one?” she said of the controversy.

Attendees found Carlson to be an amusing but unlikely choice, while Johnson offered two names not on the straw poll at all: Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin, and Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN.

Johnson relished the idea of Trump choosing Kari Lake, a firebrand running for Senate in Arizona. “I’d get cable again, just to get one channel, MSNBC, just to watch four years of meltdowns,” he said. 

But he questioned whether choices such as Lake or Ramaswamy would be “too much MAGA” for one ticket.

Julia Johnson contributed to this report.