GRAPEVINE, Texas — Something was noticeably different at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
CPAC had fled Washington for the Dallas suburbs. President Trump skipped the confab for the first time in a decade. Fewer college-age conservatives filled the convention halls, perhaps drawn away by the increasingly popular Turning Point USA.
It all raises the question: Is CPAC still politically relevant in the conservative movement?
Mr. Trump, who has made it a point to hit the campaign trail as often as possible this midterm election cycle, surprised many within the conservative movement when he decided to forgo the annual conservative confab.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to dispel the notion that Mr. Trump’s absence was because he thinks CPAC is no longer relevant.
“I don’t think he believes that at all. In fact, he loves CPAC and has a very good relationship with the great people who run it, Mercedes and Matt Schlapp,” Ms. Leavitt said when The Washington Times asked about it at Monday’s press briefing.
“It was just simply for scheduling purposes this year, with it being in Texas, it was best for the president’s schedule and what he has on his plate right now not to.”
As CPAC was underway, Mr. Trump spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago and played golf on Saturday.
Other administration officials attended the conference, including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, border czar Tom Homan, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr.
The main Republican presidential front-runners for 2028, as shown in this year’s CPAC straw poll, Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, were no-shows at the three-day event, which wrapped up Saturday night at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center.
Other potential 2028 Republican contenders also didn’t grace the CPAC stage.
The permanent relocation of the annual conference outside the Washington metro area is another reason to doubt the relevance of the 52-year-old event.
Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, said the COVID-19 pandemic forced the conference out of Washington, and he realized CPAC doesn’t need to be near the U.S. capital to draw a political crowd.
“We found … that the VIPs would travel and the ticket holders would travel and come from new states, and we made new friends,” he told The Times.
Mr. Schlapp insisted that CPAC isn’t losing clout in the conservative movement.
“I’m proud of the role we played with Donald Trump, and I think we’ll play that role again when there’s a whole conversation about who is the right person to be the next standard-bearer of the conservative cause nationwide,” he said.
Mr. Schlapp said CPAC is a much bigger enterprise than it was at its founding in 1974. It now reaches a global audience, hosting summits and meetings throughout the year and around the world. It also engages in causes such as confronting communism, persecution of Christians, antisemitism and human trafficking.
Mr. Schlapp and his wife, Mercedes, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union, have faced legal and personal adversity in recent years, which some within the conservative movement say hurt CPAC.
In March 2024, a confidential settlement was reached in the 2023 sexual assault case against Mr. Schlapp by Carlton Huffman, the political operative who filed the lawsuit, according to CNN.
Mr. Huffman alleged that Mr. Schlapp groped him in a car while he was working for Republican Herschel Walker’s 2022 Senate campaign in Georgia.
Mr. Huffman received $480,000 through an insurance policy, a source with knowledge of the situation said. Mr. Huffman’s original claim sought $9.4 million in damages.
Mr. Schlapp has asserted his innocence. After the settlement, Mr. Huffman said in a statement that his claims “were the result of a complete misunderstanding.”
Still, the damage was done.
The Schlapps were no longer familiar faces on Fox News Channel, and the news network personalities were no longer appearing on stage.
Mr. Schlapp said he thought Fox News’ coverage of CPAC this year was “great.”
“They did in-depth reporting on the straw poll, so I think they did a very responsible job.”
CPAC has reached agreements with other conservative media networks, including Newsmax, One America News, Right Side Broadcasting Network and Real America’s Voice.
Additionally, CPAC is no longer the only marquee conservative group hosting year-round activist gatherings.
CPAC now faces stiff competition from Turning Point USA, the organization whose popular founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated in September while delivering remarks at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University.
Kirk, who was 31 when a gunman killed him, founded TPUSA in 2012 and built an enormous following of young conservatives on college campuses, a demographic that would often trek to CPAC conferences in Washington.
About 4½ weeks after his death, a TPUSA representative reported that the organization had received more than 130,000 national inquiries.
TPUSA previously partnered with CPAC, but not since 2023. TPUSA’s annual AmericaFest conference drew a record 30,000 attendees in December, about 50% higher than the previous year.
Mr. Schlapp said he is not concerned by TPUSA’s growth and sees it as a positive sign for the movement.
“Did the death of Charlie Kirk inspire even more kids to go to their event this year? I bet it did. And you know what? I think that in many ways, it’s a good thing. It was a good honor to Charlie,” said Mr. Schlapp. “I don’t want to be in competition with a group that’s mourning their leader.”
CPAC attendees also defended the conference’s continued relevance, saying it is an important place to network, learn about issues and get motivated for upcoming elections.
“CPAC was wonderful. I mean, I love that they bring together all the conservative speakers, and we can get different perspectives from all the different individuals,” said Peter Juhasz, 72, a retiree from Georgetown, Texas.
He added that CPAC was necessary “to raise awareness, to support the conservative movement.”
“A lot of people who claim that they’re Republicans are not truly conservative. We need these values. It’s not just about politics. It’s about true values that support conservatism.”
Former Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas said CPAC still “fires people up … to go back home all over the country, and to get animated, to do something.”
• Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.
