Organizers of CPAC are working hard to ensure this year’s conference ends with a sense of what conservatives in America think about their presidential candidates. In past years, they’ve relied on the CPAC straw poll of attendees at the conference to meet that goal. But that’s failed recently for three reasons: One, the assembled CPACers are much, much younger than the conservative electorate. Two, Ron Paul has stuffed the ballot box in the past two years, leaving straw poll essentially a joke. Three? The turnout is extremely low – not many of the thousands that come here actually take time out to drop a ballot in the box. 

This year, things will be a bit different. Organizers have already said that Paul hasn’t run up the score this time around and there are new electronic voting methods aimed at boosting turnout. But the crowd still skews young, so the straw poll will probably not be an accuratde depiction of the conservatives that will head to the remaining polls this year.

That’s why CPAC has commissioned a national poll that will come out at the same time as the straw poll results. The telephone poll of 600 self-identified conservatives across the country was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday using the exact same questions as are on the straw poll survey.