WASHINGTON — Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s Republican leader, has not been invited to this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, two sources familiar with the event’s organizing tell McClatchy.
The annual conference, set to kick off this Thursday in Orlando, Florida, and run through Sunday, will feature speeches by former President Donald Trump, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and more than a half a dozen senators.
But McConnell wasn’t granted an invitation when CPAC organizers began compiling their roster for the four-day gathering last fall. An organizer said the decision was not directly tied to McConnell’s rebukes of Trump in recent weeks in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Leader McConnell did a great job confirming judges, and we know he will be a strong supporter of restoring appropriate election laws. Next year would be a better year for him to address the improvements to election laws once the states have time to act,” said Dan Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union, which puts on the event.
If McConnell was to show up on the CPAC stage, he would risk being met by a hostile audience, given the group’s loyalty to Trump. While McConnell voted to acquit Trump of inciting the insurrection in his second impeachment trial this month, the Kentuckian said the former president was morally responsible for the rampage and could be held criminally or civilly liable.
A McConnell spokesman referred questions to CPAC.
“There’s always tension between the grassroots and the establishment. That’s part of the history of this thing,” said the CPAC source, adding that the change of location from the D.C. Beltway to Florida will make the crowd more inherently conservative and pro-Trump. “You’re not going to have the swampy set.”
McConnell has appeared at CPAC in the past. In 2014, when he faced a primary challenge from Matt Bevin and a high-profile general election contest against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, McConnell appeared on stage hoisting a rifle over his head.
Sen. Rand Paul, who won CPAC straw polls from 2013 to 2015, was invited to this year’s conference but declined an invitation as he has in recent years.
Former Vice President Mike Pence also declined an invitation to speak as he plans to step away from the public stage for the next several months.
The annual conference draws thousands of conservative activists from across the country and the speaker list is usually a useful clue to demonstrate what politicians harbor presidential ambitions.
The potential 2024 aspirant line-up is already long, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota and Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Rick Scott of Florida.
But the main event will be Trump’s return to the public foray on Sunday, where he is expected to address an array of topics since being deplatformed from his social media accounts in January.
A new poll from The Economist/YouGov this week showed how much power Trump still wields over his party. Forty-eight percent of Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for a candidate who has been critical of Trump and 61% said they’d be more likely to vote for a candidate with Trump’s endorsement.
