It’s hard to think of a political event that has fallen out of favor more than CPAC.
Five years ago, CPAC was an unmissable event for anyone involved in Republican politics. From Sean Hannity‘s live Fox News show, to the parade of Republican lawmakers and commentators speaking on the event’s main stage and the host of conservative organizations and companies eager to recruit activists and share their programs, it was a conservative politics Disneyland.
In 2018 and 2019, I was one of thousands of college students who attended CPAC. Back then the event was in its heyday, and it was hard to find a better place to connect with other Republicans. But as I wandered the event on Thursday, in a presidential election year, I couldn’t help but notice how much it had changed.
The college students who used to make up the largest portion of the audience are gone, as are the organizations that used to help facilitate their travel to the event. The Leadership Institute and Turning Point USA have completely disappeared from the conference’s exhibit hall, while the Young America’s Foundation’s once formidable presence has been reduced to a table staffed by two employees who looked like they would rather be elsewhere. All three organizations used to bring hundreds of college students to the event, while hosting happy hours and meet-and-greets with conservative leaders in the evening, thus keeping the party alive after the main stage agenda had ended for the day.
Besides the youth organizations, the other glaring change is that the most well-funded and influential conservative organizations have abandoned the event entirely. The National Rifle Association used to command multiple speaking spots on the main stage, and their display at the exhibit hall was one of the most popular and exciting of the event.
The Heritage Foundation, arguably the most influential conservative think tank in the nation, used to control an entire corner of the exhibit hall, showcasing their extensive policy work, recruiting students to apply to their internship program, and handing out all sorts of nicknacks. This year, Heritage is nowhere to be seen, aside from a little table tucked away in the exhibit hall for its presidential transition effort, Project 2025.
And with the fewer students, and fewer high-profile sponsors, the crowds that used to make CPAC the most crowded political event of the year have dwindled substantially. When I attended in the late 2010s, the broadcast row that lines the entrance to the ballroom was an impassable mass of people.
Today, you can walk through it with ease, aside from a small crowd that encircles the stage for Steve Bannon’s War Room broadcast. And sure, Thursday may be the least attended day, especially given that former President Donald Trump is not scheduled to speak until Saturday. But in its heyday, the crowds were there every day.
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It’s hard to pinpoint one cause for this decline. The chairman of CPAC, Matt Schlapp, has largely turned the event into a way for him and his wife to showcase their support for Trump, and that’s to say nothing about the personal baggage that he brings, fairly earned or not.
It’s hard to find a better word to describe CPAC in 2024 than just plain old boring. This once must-attend event has turned toward increasing irrelevance. The high-profile speakers may still show up and rally the smaller crowd, but the excitement, the influence, and the prestige that used to be the hallmarks of CPAC are all gone. It’s turned into a massive snoozefest, and it will likely take new leadership and a radical change of vision to restore the conference to its old status as the biggest event in conservative politics.