The Grassroots GOP Candidate: The Leader and the Surprise

July 21, 2023 8:30 am

This past weekend, I attended the first ever Turning Point Action conference (a.k.a. “ActCon 2023”). This “grassroots conservative”-oriented conference highlighted many well-known figures within the American Conservative movement–including several GOP presidential candidates. TP Action invited all of the major Republican candidates to speak at the conference, but only 6 agreed to speak. The GOP presidential candidates who spoke at ActCon 2023 were President Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, Perry Johnson, Ryan Binkely, Francis Suarez, and Asa Hutchinson.

Did you notice who didn’t speak at this conference? The answer: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis declined to speak at this Turning Point conference in order to go campaigning in Iowa. Considering the conference took place in the heart of Florida, many conference attendees were quite disappointed to see DeSantis skipping a major Conservative conference in his home state.

President Trump traded some barbs with DeSantis during Trump’s fiery speech on the first night of ActCon 2023. In fact, many of the conference’s attendees loudly cheered President Trump when Trump criticized DeSantis.

Toward the end of the conference, the Trafalgar group conducted a straw poll about the GOP Presidential nomination.

Conference attendees were able to answer two primary questions from the straw poll:

1. Who is your first pick for President from the GOP primary field?

2. Who is your second pick for President from the GOP primary field?

The results were quite staggering and somewhat surprising. For the straw poll’s first question, over 85% of attendees supported Donald Trump as the GOP’s Presidential nominee–compared to just 4.3% for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis

For the second question, over half of poll respondents selected businessman Vivek Ramaswamy as their second choice for the GOP presidential candidate.

Looking at the results, it appears that President Trump has consolidated support among the GOP’s grassroots voting base. Just last year, Trump received only 78% support for GOP presidential nomination–compared to Ron DeSantis receiving 19% support from a straw poll conducted at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit (SAS) conference. I discussed last year’s SAS 2022 conference poll here on RVIVR. Trump’s growing support among Turning Point conference attendees is obviously a positive sign for his prospects heading into the 2024 GOP primary season.

In contrast, DeSantis’s polling numbers have sagged in recent months. Several months ago, DeSantis positioned himself as a legitimate replacement for Trump. However, a horrendous campaign rollout on a Twitter space back in May and growing unease about DeSantis’s low charisma have stunted DeSantis’s presidential ambitions. In contrast, President Trump’s campaign has gained considerable momentum. His polling numbers have strengthened considerably after receiving indictments from the Manhattan DA’s office and the DOJ earlier this year.

On the other hand, Ramaswamy’s impressive numbers in the straw poll is quite an interesting development. He appears to have gained a decent support base within the Conservative movement and appears as viable threat to DeSantis as the 2nd choice within the GOP presidential primary race.

Personally, I voted for President Trump as my first choice and Vivek Ramaswamy as my second choice in the conference straw poll. While I firmly support Trump as the 2024 GOP Presidential nominee, Vivek does have some interesting policy ideas and is positioning himself as Trump-friendly, MAGA candidate for President. So, we shall see what Ramaswamy’s end-game is–such as if he hopes to become Trump’s potential VP or a member of Trump’s cabinet.

To close this article, I wanted to share a two funny observations from the 2023 Turning Point Action conference:

1. RINO receives boos

Surpringly, former Arkansas Governor and notorious RINO Asa Hutchinson spoke before this pro-Trump crowd. The result: conference attendees merciless booed Hutchinson. The video below capture this hilarious moment.

2. Conference attendees troll Christie and Pence.

In the conference’s main exhibition hall, conference attendees were allowed to post notes on the photos of all the major 2024 GOP presidential candidates. As you can probably guess, many conference attendees left some choice words for both Mike Pence and Chris Christie. Let’s just say that the MAGA movement does not take kindly to RINOs (“Republicans-in-name-only”).