Organizers said that more than 10,000 people from across the country attended the conference, but only 3,742 of them participated in the straw poll, the results of which offer little indication of which candidate will emerge to take on the president. The tepid showing of many of the candidates underscored the problems they face as they seek to introduce themselves to Republican primary voters. The conference is intended to allow candidates to test the themes of their prospective candidacies.

The people who attend the conference, which has been meeting in Washington for nearly four decades, are not representative of Republican primary voters. But nearly a dozen potential candidates still delivered speeches in hopes of building support.

Many of the potential contenders who are expected to announce their candidacy in the coming weeks fared poorly in the straw poll, including Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who received 5 percent, and Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, who got 4 percent.

Ms. Palin has not announced her intentions, but her supporters confirmed on Saturday that she had hired a veteran Republican adviser to run her political action committee and try to bring order to her political operation.