Trump set to headline diminished gathering
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference was once one of the premier gatherings on the GOP campaign calendar — a must-stop for serious contenders testing the waters on presidential runs.
No longer.
Many of the party’s bestknown likely candidates — from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former Vice President Mike Pence — are skipping the marquee event kicking off Wednesday as the group grapples with controversy and questions over its place in a movement that remains deeply split over its allegiance to former President Donald Trump.
Adding to the turmoil: A lawsuit filed by an unnamed Republican campaign staffer against Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union, which organizes the conference. The suit accuses Schlapp of groping him during a car ride in Georgia before the November election. Schlapp has denied the allegations.
“I don’t think people go there to meet the next generation of leaders. They go to celebrate the last one,” said Alex Conant, a longtime GOP strategist who remembers attending his first CPAC as a high school student in the 1990s and being star-struck meeting Newt Gingrich, the Georgia congressman who had just stepped down as House speaker.
Conant returned often as an aide, including when he was working for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a 2016 presidential candidate who was one of a long list of Republicans with a breakthrough moment on CPAC’s stage over the years.
This time, however, Rubio is absent.
“I think CPAC used to be a place where stars could break out. Now it’s much more the Trump show,” Conant said.
Among those also skipping this year’s event are congressional leaders and governors, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, and several potential presidential prospects, including Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who has been building buzz among some donors.
“He’s laser-focused on Virginia and having a good legislative session and now focused on passing the budget,” said Jeff Roe, a Youngkin political consultant.
Pence is a longtime CPAC speaker who has not appeared at the conference since he drew the ire of some Trump supporters by resisting Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In explaining why Pence declined to attend this year, his aides cited a full schedule of events this week, including a Club for Growth donor summit, a trip to South Carolina, where he will speak at the evangelical Bob Jones University, a speech at the conservative Christian Hillsdale College in Michigan and a Students for Life of America event in Florida.
“We felt that the vice president’s time was best spent hitting multiple constituencies over the course of those four days,” said one adviser, Devin O’Malley.
The cold shoulder marks a dramatic change from 2015, the year before the last competitive GOP presidential primary, when CPAC’s schedule included nearly all of the major candidates, Jeb Bush among them. The former Florida governor, who is now criticized by many on the right, received a warm reception, even as a small number of activists staged a walkout.
This year, Trump has top billing, delivering the conference’s headlining speech Saturday evening. He is almost guaranteed to win the event’s annual unscientific presidential preference poll of attendees.
Also on the schedule are the two other declared Republican candidates: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy.