Narrative Intelligence: CPAC Rundown

CPAC Rundown

From March 1st-4th, the Conservative Political Action Conference took place in Washington D.C, and former President Donald Trump dominated it. What was once considered a key venue for all potential presidential candidates seemed to be lacking a few key faces this year. One of the main stories of the conference was that among others, Gov. Ron Desantis (FL.) was not present, who is considered to be the top contender in the upcoming presidential primaries to Donald Trump. But a lack of presidential candidates was not the only thing missing from this CPAC.

According to multiple reporters that were present at CPAC, the crowd seemed to be diminished compared to previous gatherings. Many images surfaced online of what seemed to be empty rooms and lackluster crowds. The event was capped off by a 90-minute speech given by Donald Trump who went through his lengthy list of grievances to the largest crowd the event saw all week. Donald Trump went on to win the closely-monitored CPAC straw poll by a whopping 62 percent to Desatis’s 28 percent. 

Let us take a closer look at the CPAC narrative in U.S media with this Kudzu narrative brief:

Key Insights:

• “Donald Trump” is the single most popular phrase in this brief with 2239 mentions. This demonstrates how large his presence has become at CPAC.
• “Ron DeSantis” picked up over 1100 mentions which goes to say his absence was indeed noted by the media, and this was one of the main narratives of the conference. 
• Nikki Haley also drew media attention last week with 1003 mentions in the last 7 days which was the third most popular name of the brief. This could be indicative of where she stands in the race so far following her Presidential candidacy announcement. In third place in all major polls, and in third place within U.S media narratives.