The 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas ended on Saturday, bringing speakers and attendees from across the world to North Texas.
The conference — which kept President Donald Trump at its core, despite his absence — drew Texans Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz and Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and exiled Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
Here are five takeaways from the week’s events.
Donald Trump skips, but presence still felt
President Donald Trump didn’t attend CPAC for the first time since 2016, but he was still front and center at the gathering of conservatives.
Trump-themed clothing was on full display among attendees. At the Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday night, gold hats commemorating the president sold for thousands of dollars.
CPAC conducted a straw poll of attendees that found supporters overwhelmingly support Trump. Of the more than 1,600 surveyed, 96% said they approved of Trump, and 92% said they approved of Vice President JD Vance.
“It’s just incredible the support that President Trump maintains, in spite of what we’re being told by the quote unquote Talking Heads,” CPAC Board Member Jim McLaughlin said.
Ken Paxton favored among CPAC attendees
CPAC’s straw poll also found that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton leading U.S. Sen. John Cornyn among 67% of Texas voters surveyed. The two are in a runoff in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate on May 26.
Paxton received CPAC’s official endorsement from the main stage on Saturday and was the speaker at the Reagan dinner the night before. He also held a meet and greet, where attendees could mingle with the Senate hopeful.
“Let’s get rid of the guy that represents Washington, and let’s put somebody in that represents Texas,” Paxton said.
Vilma Moreno from Lewisville said the conference had convinced her to support Paxton, despite voting for Cornyn in March. But a Cornyn endorsement from Trump would be influential enough to sway her back, Moreno said.
The president has teased an endorsement, but hasn’t announced his preferred candidate.
Asked about CPAC’s straw poll results and Cornyn’s absence from the conference, Cornyn campaign senior adviser Matt Mackowiak said the senator “overperformed all expectations by winning the primary after Ken Paxton spent two weeks predicting he would win without a runoff.”
Cornyn votes with Trump more than 99% of the time and is one of the president’s most effective allies in the Senate, Mackowiak said.
“Texas Republicans must nominate John Cornyn who is our strongest nominee by far to gain five new congressional seats and advance Trump’s legislative agenda in the final two years of his second term,” he said.
CPAC Chairman Matt Schlapp has said that Cornyn was invited to attend.
War in Iran in the spotlight
The American and Israeli-led war against Iran was in the spotlight during CPAC.
Many attendees bore the Iranian flag as they walked around the Gaylord Texan and listened to speakers. More than once, chants thanking Trump for the intervention broke out, and on Thursday a rally in support of the war was held near the hotel.
Some of the loudest cheers of the weekend came when Pahlavi, the exiled Iranian crown price, addressed the conference.
“The only path to lasting peace and stability was through a clean break with the regime,” Reza told the crowd. “For the first time in 47 years, President Trump’s strategy has given us a real chance to achieve that outcome.”
Many at the event supported having him as the leader of Iran.
A focus on the war in Iran was part of an overall focus on foreign policy and political affairs worldwide, during a conference that brought attendees from across the world.
CPAC included main stage sessions featuring speakers from the United Kingdom, South Korea and Poland.
Push for unity among conservatives
From early in the conference’s program, there were discussions about unity among conservatives.
“We cannot divide from within,” said CPAC senior fellow Mercedes Schlapp on Thursday.
Some attendees said the killing of conservative activist and Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, who was shot on a campus in Utah last September, left the Republican Party without a unifier. Some attendees also pointed out that, while conservatives are largely united, media personalities have highlighted divisions.
CPAC’s straw poll found that 88% of respondents agreed with the statement that “many supposed conservative leaders and influencers are creating unnecessary controversy and division in the MAGA movement in order to get attention and make money which will hurt the conservative movement, President Trump and real MAGA conservatives in November’s political elections.”
The war in Iran has also been mentioned in conversations about unity among conservatives.
The straw poll found that 89% of those surveyed approve of Trump’s “decision to use military force in Iran to remove Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his terrorist regime from power in order to stop their nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.”
Anti-Islam rhetoric
Opposition to “Shariah law” was on during the conference during remarks made by Texas officials like Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott.
When former Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French took the stage, he said that not sharia law, halal and the call to prayer should be banned, “but more importantly, we have to send them all home.”
Shariah means the correct path in Arabic and refers to the divine counsel that Muslims follow to be close to God and live moral lives, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Most Muslim majority countries have laws that reference Shairah, and some countries’ have laws that critics say include cruel punishments or place undue restrictions on women and minorities, per the council.
“However, there is great diversity in how governments interpret and apply Shariah, and people often misunderstand the role it plays in legal systems and the lives of individuals,” according to the council’s website.
