Ramaswamy campaign claims was offered deal to pay over $100,000 for CPAC straw poll votes, report

The presidential campaign for GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy says a political consultant with ties to the Conservative Political Action Conference posed a deal in which the consultant would bus people to the event to get them to vote for Ramaswamy in the closing-day straw poll in exchange for $100,000.

"Basically, they were like, if you pay I think it was upward of $100,000, we can get tickets and bus a bunch of people in for the straw poll," a senior Ramaswamy campaign manager told Politico on Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.

"I was taken aback, because I’ve never been to CPAC before, and it’s very activist driven, but I think if any of them knew it was an artificial poll, they’d be pretty pissed about that," the campaign manager said. 

Ramaswamy's campaign declined the proposal. 

Politico confirmed that the consultant is tied to CPAC, but the campaign shared the offer and asked that the name of consultant not be reported, out of fear of retribution.

"A straw poll is a vote that those in attendance get to participate in. If a presidential contender is organized and popular, they can do well," a CPAC spokesperson told the outlet. 

Former President Donald Trump won the 2023 CPAC straw poll with 62%, while Ramaswamy received 1%.

Ramaswamy said he wanted to speak out about the call in an effort to expose corruption in modern politics. 

"I’m not someone who has grown up in politics, but everything I’ve learned suggests that there is a lot that people need to see in the open," Ramaswamy said. "We’ve decided to go 'full transparency' on exposing the quasi-corrupt process of the campaign itself."