A conservative caucus provides a safe space for Republicans who disagree with Trump

ATLANTA (AP) — At the Republican National Convention and at several rallies since, former President Donald Trump has been hailed as a hero who escaped assassination and is destined to lead a new American golden age.

At a recent conservative conference in Georgia, there was a different atmosphere.

There were few, if any, red hats at “The Gathering,” the annual confab hosted by influential syndicated radio host Erick Erickson, and no glowing promises to “Make America Great Again.” Instead, Erickson’s guests, from high-ranking voters to Trump’s former vice president, spent two days criticizing the GOP’s path in the Trump era. And when it came to the November election, many of them spent more time wringing their hands about a Kamala Harris presidency than celebrating the promise of another Trump administration.

The dynamic is particularly problematic for the former president’s chances in Georgia, a longtime Republican stronghold that has turned into a true two-party state with a handful of other states in contention. They also serve as a reminder that despite a near-complete takeover of the GOP, Trump still has detractors and skeptics among conservatives whose decisions this fall could help determine whether he returns to the White House.

“I willingly voted for it in 2016, then held my nose and did it again in 2020,” said Atlanta small business owner Barton McMillan, a four-decade resident of the city who blames Trump for recent Democratic victories in Georgia, which endorsed Joe Biden for president in 2020 and elected two Democratic U.S. senators.

“This time, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” McMillan said. “And I’m representative of a lot of people here.”

Indeed, Erickson’s rally featured dismay at federal spending, abortion policy, Trump’s proposed tariffs, America’s uncertain role in the international order, the former president’s penchant for personal attacks, his fixation on the lie that systemic voter fraud would to blame for his 2020 loss and his false claim that his vice president at the time, Mike Pence, had the power to overturn Biden’s election.

“I cannot support President Trump’s continued assertion that I should have set aside my oath to uphold the Constitution and act in a way that would have overturned the election,” Pence said.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who was recently criticized by Trump for not helping to flip the 2020 election, received a standing ovation when he was introduced, laughter when he compared the former president to a tropical storm and more applause when he asked Republicans to focus. on the future.

“We will use our political operation to win Georgia, despite past grievances,” Kemp assured Erickson, without mentioning Trump by name. Trump has come under fire for his efforts to overturn the 2020 results in Georgia and elsewhere; those cases are pending.

In his criticism, Pence pointed to the 2024 Republican platform that fails — for the first time in decades — to call for a nationwide abortion ban and sidesteps the soaring national debt that has grown during Trump’s four years in office. Pence lamented an increasingly isolationist and protectionist bent among the GOP base — opposition to U.S. aid to Ukraine against Vladimir Putin’s invading Russian forces and Trump’s promise to raise tariffs in a second term.

The Republican Party, Pence said, is under a spell of “populism unanchored by conservative principle.”

Walter Michaelis, a 22-year-old preparing to cast his second presidential vote, stood and applauded the former vice president and then said Trump’s “America First” approach may be going too far, particularly on tariffs and trade.

“I understand why Trump was needed in 2016,” Michaelis said. “But sometimes I think it would be better now for the party to move on.”

Michaelis, who voted for Trump in 2020, said he would not support Harris but has not yet decided whether he will vote for the former president again.

Kent Kim, a 30-year-old from Alpharetta, said he decided to go with Trump. But he added that he had withheld his vote for Trump before and said, “I know people who will probably do that this year.”

A key reason for Trump’s defeat was the underperformance of the usual Republican votes in the suburbs of Atlanta, Philadelphia and Phoenix, areas that helped swing Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona to Biden. Those same spots could also boost Harris in the fall.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., during his turn on stage with Erickson, tacitly acknowledged the risks while lamenting recent Republican losses in winnable Senate contests. He said that includes Georgia, where Trump-endorsed Herschel Walker lost to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022 despite Republicans winning every other statewide election.

McConnell predicted a GOP Senate majority in the new Congress, but sounded less confident about the presidency. Despite blaming Trump for the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, he endorsed Trump for president.

“We all know who we hope the next administration will be,” he told Erickson. However, McConnell outlined a conservative agenda without mentioning the former president, except to support an extension of the 2017 “Trump tax cuts.”

And, echoing Pence, McConnell chided an unnamed Republican for moving away from the traditional U.S. role on the world stage.

“We occasionally had these isolationist moods,” he said, noting that the 1930s gave rise to the original “America First” rallying cry. “That stopped after Pearl Harbor,” McConnell said, only for some American conservatives to resist the creation of NATO and the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II.

McConnell warned that the same mistakes are looming with North Korea, China, Russia and Iran “all talking to each other” as “an axis of powerful regimes”. McConnell said this requires a firm US international presence and more robust defense spending in Western democracies.

“If I had one message for the next administration … take this seriously,” McConnell said.

Even some of Trump’s staunchest allies offered subtle warnings.

Former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Erickson talked about her loss to Democrat Raphael Warnock in January 2021, when tens of thousands of Republicans who voted for Trump the previous November stayed home on the tour after Trump put on openly doubt the veracity of the vote count. Loeffler did not blame Trump, as Erickson implied, but she pointed out that Trump, as he campaigns this year, is encouraging his supporters to take advantage of every voting option: by mail, early voting in person or on election day.

Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who is running to succeed McConnell as Senate GOP leader, said in a brief interview that Trump “will be fine.” But when asked about Trump’s choice of new struggles within the party, Scott steered the conversation to his own success in a series of close contests for governor and Senate.

“I try to make sure that ultimately in my races there is a choice and it’s a political choice. … It just talks about the issues,” he said.

Asked if he would offer that advice to Trump, Scott said, “Well, I mean, he’s going to run the race that he likes to run.”