The next presidential election is three years away, but Turning Point USA already knows it wants Vice President JD Vance as the Republican nominee.
Erika Kirk, leader of the powerful conservative youth organization, endorsed him on opening night of its annual AmericaFest convention, drawing cheers from the crowd.
But the four-day gathering revealed more peril than promise for Mr. Vance or any other potential successor to President Donald Trump, and the tensions on display foreshadow the treacherous waters that they will need to navigate in the coming years. The “Make America Great Again” movement is fracturing as Republicans begin considering a future without President Donald Trump, and there is no clear path to holding his coalition together as different factions jockey for influence.
After a weekend of debates about whether the movement should exclude figures such as antisemitic podcaster Nick Fuentes, Mr. Vance came down on the side of open debate.
“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform,” Mr. Vance said Sunday during the convention’s closing speech. He decried “self-defeating purity tests” and said there was a place for you in the movement “if you love America.”
“We don’t care if you’re white or Black, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little bit boring, or somewhere in between,” Mr. Vance said.
He did not name Mr. Fuentes, but his comment came in the midst of an increasingly contentious debate over whether the MAGA movement should include Mr. Fuentes and his followers.
A post-Trump Republican Party?
The Republican Party’s identity has been intertwined with Mr. Trump for a decade. Now that he is constitutionally ineligible to run for reelection, the party is starting to ponder a future without him at the helm.
So far, it looks like settling that question will require a lot of fighting among conservatives. Turning Point featured arguments about antisemitism, Israel, and environmental regulations, not to mention rivalries between leading commentators.
“Who gets to run it after?” asked commentator Tucker Carlson, summing up the core fight in his speech at the conference. “Who gets the machinery when the president exits the scene?”
Mr. Carlson said the idea of a Republican “civil war” was “totally fake.”
“There are people who are mad at JD Vance, and they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination,” he said. Mr. Carlson described Mr. Vance as “the one person” who subscribes to the “core idea of the Trump coalition,” which Mr. Carlson said was “America first.”
Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet framed the discord as a healthy debate about the future of the movement, an uncomfortable but necessary process of finding consensus.
“We’re not hive-minded commies,” he wrote on X. “Let it play out.”
Turning Point backs Vance for president
Erika Kirk, who took over as Turning Point’s leader when her husband, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated, said Thursday that the group wanted Mr. Vance “elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible.” The next president will be the 48th in U.S. history.
Turning Point is a major force on the right, with a nationwide volunteer network that can be especially helpful in early primary states, when candidates rely on grassroots energy to build momentum. In a surprise appearance, rapper Nicki Minaj spoke effusively about Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance.
Mr. Kirk’s endorsement carried “at least a little bit of weight” for Kiara Wagner, who traveled from Toms River, New Jersey, for the conference.
“If someone like Erika could support JD Vance, then I can too,” Ms. Wagner said.
Mr. Vance was close with Charlie Kirk. After Mr. Kirk’s assassination on a college campus in Utah, the vice president flew out on Air Force Two to collect Mr. Kirk’s remains and bring them home to Arizona. The vice president helped uniformed service members carry the casket to the plane.
“I’m honored to be on Turning Point’s team,” Mr. Vance said.
Vance has Republican dissenters
Not everyone in the GOP stands with Vance.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. said Mr. Vance represents a turn away from the limited government, pro-trade, low-tax orthodoxy that has defined the Republican Party for generations. The GOP should stick with its roots, he said, and that is not Mr. Vance.
“All these protariff protectionists, they love taxes. And so they tax, tax, tax, and then they brag about all the revenue coming in,” Mr. Paul said on ABC’s This Week. “That has never been a conservative position.”
Mr. Vance appeared to have the edge for the 2028 nomination as far as Turning Point attendees are concerned.
“It has to be JD Vance because he has been so awesome when it comes to literally any question,” said Tomas Morales, a videographer from Los Angeles. He said “there’s no other choice.”
Mr. Trump has not chosen a successor, though he has spoken highly of both Mr. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, even suggesting they could form a future Republican ticket. Mr. Rubio has said he would support Mr. Vance.
Asked in August whether Mr. Vance was the “heir apparent,” Mr. Trump said “most likely.”
“It’s too early, obviously, to talk about it, but certainly he’s doing a great job, and he would be probably favorite at this point,” he said.
Any talk of future campaigns is complicated by Mr. Trump’s occasional musings about seeking a third term.
“I’m not allowed to run,” he told reporters during a trip to Asia in October. “It’s too bad.”
The president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is close to Mr. Vance and advocated for him to get the vice presidential nomination in 2024. Mr. Trump Jr. echoed Mr. Vance’s vision for the United States to take a step back from its role ensuring global security and said immigration is negatively changing the nation’s identity.
“A country cannot survive when it imports people who don’t share their values,” Mr. Trump Jr. said. “We don’t owe the world a thing. We owe Americans their American dream.”
This story was reported by The Associated Press.
