The RNC wants a massive Trump celebration. Some worry ordinary Republicans can’t afford to attend
Conservative principles face implementation challenges as policy meets political complexity.
Tens of thousands of dollars for special access to a midterm convention meant to fire up the base. Somebody should have caught that math before it went out the door. The whole point of a party convention is to get the precinct captains and door-knockers in the room, not to build a velvet rope around them.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
GOP state parties are charging tens of thousands of dollars for special access to the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention, sparking concerns that the high cost of attending could price out the grassroots activists who traditionally knock doors, make phone calls, and turn out voters.
RNC Chairman Joe Gruters previously told the Washington Examiner that the “upcoming […]
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Tens of thousands of dollars for special access to a midterm convention meant to fire up the base. Somebody should have caught that math before it went out the door. The whole point of a party convention is to get the precinct captains and door-knockers in the room, not to build a velvet rope around them.
We get that conventions cost money and donors expect something for their checks. Nobody's naive about that. But there's a difference between a rubber-chicken dinner for big givers and pricing out the volunteers who actually win elections in places like rural Ohio and suburban Georgia. Those are the people who show up in July heat with a clipboard because they believe in something, not because they can write a check with that many zeros on it.
Joe Gruters can call it whatever he wants in an interview, but the optics write themselves. A party that spent a decade insisting it speaks for regular people can't turn around and sell the good seats to whoever can afford them. If the RNC wants a real celebration of what happened in 2024, it should look like the coalition that made it happen, not a donor retreat with a stage set dressed up as a rally.
There's still time to fix this before it becomes a story about hypocrisy instead of momentum. Cut the tiers, let the state parties subsidize a real block of grassroots seats, and let the people who actually did the work into the room. A party that forgets who got it here won't stay in power long enough to throw another party..
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.