- GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said his campaign received a call the day after he announced his candidacy, and the consultant on the other end of the phone offered a prize that would intrigue any upstart presidential contender: second place in the CPAC straw poll.
- The unnamed consultant allegedly told the Ramaswamy campaign: “If you basically pay more, upwards of $120,000, we can give you more tickets so you can bus more people in,” a senior campaign official said they were told, “and you’ll be higher on the straw poll.”
- A respectable but solid showing in that poll would cost $80,000. “Second place,” the aide said was priced at, “closer to $200,000.”
