The return of Trump: CPAC puts the GOP's 2024 race front and center
ORLANDO– Republican presidential hopefuls who once hoped to make their marks at a high- profile conservative political conference this weekend hit a lastminute roadblock.
Donald Trump decided to show up.
Trump' s appearan ce Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference – his first speech since his norm-busting presidency ended on Jan. 20 – now dominates the annual event at which conservative activists will plot the future of their movement.
That future, for the time being, revolves around a vocal ex-president, despite opposition from“establishment” Republicans, two impeachments, last year's election loss to now-President Joe Biden, and a failed insurrection just last month.
For those eyeing a White House run, they now find themselves in the unenviable position of having to compete for attendees' attention with a still-popular former president.
Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and a conservative critic of the former president, described Trump's CPAC appearance as “his first real attempt to flex that muscle again. He's the GOP boss, everyone must kiss his ring. That's what he'll reaffirm.”
Trump“obviously misses public adoration,” Walsh said. “He'll feed off of that, and he'll make clear in his speech that the Republican Party is his.”
GOP `split between the governing faction and the populist faction'
This year' s C PAC meeting, a premier conservative event for more than a half-century that kicks off Friday, comes as the Republican Party is di vi ded between t hose who want to stick with Trump and those who want to move forward without all of his political baggage.
Last week, Trump launched a notably harsh attack on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, calling him a“ad our, sullen, and unsmiling political hack.” McConnell, who has quest i oned whether Trump should still lead the party, condemned his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection even as he voted to acquit the expresident in this month's Senate impeachment trial.
Rep. Liz Cheney, one of the ten House Republicans who vote for Trump' s impeachment in January, said this week that the expresident should not be
part of the GOP's future.
Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster and consultant, sees the split as one between a “pro-governing” wing of the party and the “pro-populist” wing.
The populists, he said, are more interested in being anti-establishment, anti-immigrant, and antimedia. Trump fused those people into a force that won the Electoral College in 2016, but could not get him over the top in 2020.
Now, “the Republican Party is seriously split between t he governing faction and the populist faction ,” Ayres said, and CPAC “will be a celebration of the populist faction.”
Mitt Romney, the party' s 2012 presidential nominee and one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict Trump a this latest impeachment trial, has lamented Trump's continuing support among Republicans, saying this week that if Trump ran again in 2024, he would likely win the GOP nomination.