And the winner is … Ron Paul.

Mr. Paul, a Republican Congressman from Texas who inspired an intense following for president in 2008, swept the 2012 presidential straw poll Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

He won with 31 percent of the nearly 2,400 votes at the conference, edging out Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who won the straw poll last year and who captured 22 percent of the vote.

When Mr. Paul’s name was announced in the packed ballroom of a Washington hotel, it elicited hoots and boos along with applause. Although Mr. Romney won fewer votes, he seemed to draw stronger applause.

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska, who did not attend the conference, was a distant third, with 7 percent of the vote.



About half of the 10,000 people attending the conference are students, according to the poll. The straw poll in past years has rarely predicted the winner of the Republican nomination.

Despite the poll, David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the CPAC conference, said that there was little talk at the conference of the 2012 presidential race, largely because Republicans are focused on the 2010 midterms.

“We all have our eyes on the closest target,” he said.

Here are the full results of the straw poll. CPAC says that 2,395 people voted, while estimating that 10,000 people attended some parts of the conference.