Republican presidential hopefuls are converging Friday for a meeting of conservative activists, a chance to test their message before next week’s debate and court voters without the presence of the frontrunner they are seeking to supplant — Donald Trump.
The two-day forum in Atlanta, known as “The Gathering,” is hosted by influential conservative radio host Erick Erickson and designed to give the rest of the Republican roster space to discuss issues other than Trump’s string of indictments, including most recently charges in Georgia itself.
The event will feature Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s top rival for the nomination, and five other lower-polling challengers, and marks the final showcase before Wednesday’s first presidential primary debate in Milwaukee.
Trump has said he might boycott the debate. He wasn’t invited to Erickson’s event.
Erickson, who opposed Trump in 2016, supported him in 2020 and now opposes him in 2024, said party activists don’t need to hear from the former president.
“They know Donald Trump and where he stands on the issues,” he said. “The objective of this event is to introduce key citizens of the Southeast to other candidates they are not as familiar with.”
On the agenda are social issues like parental rights but also the future of artificial intelligence, and economic and military competition with China, Erickson said.
Read More: Trump Cancels News Conference to Promote Election Fraud Theories
Still, Trump is certain to cast a shadow over the event, which will be held at an Atlanta hotel seven miles north of the Fulton County Courthouse, where on Monday he was indicted for the fourth time. He’s accused of leading an effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states through a scheme that involved fake electors, hacked voting machines and the harassment and intimidation of election officials.
Trump has until Aug. 25 to voluntarily turn himself in to the Fulton County sheriff.
In his last visit to the state, for the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention in June, Trump repeated his claims that he won there in 2020 — despite an initial count, an audit-triggered hand recount, and a second Trump-requested recount that all confirmed President Joe Biden’s victory.
His false accounts of election fraud created a rift with Georgia officials including Republican Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
“The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen,” Kemp said, responding to a Trump social media post this week. “For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward — under oath — and prove anything in a court of law.”
Many Georgia Republicans blame Trump for casting doubt on elections even as the state’s two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, faced close runoff contests early in 2021. Both lost, costing the party control of the Senate and allowing Biden to pass sweeping legislation in his first two years.
Trump won Georgia with a narrow plurality in the 2016 Republican primary, but lost the Atlanta area to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. A Landmark Communications poll in May showed Trump leading the Republican nomination contest with 40%, a slight edge over DeSantis. That’s much narrower than national polls which in the months since have shown Trump extending his lead over DeSantis.
Rapid demographic change in Georgia, fueled by a corporate job boom across the Sun Belt, has transformed the state from a reliable Republican stronghold to perhaps the most competitive swing state in the country. Atlanta saw some of the highest inflation of any major metropolitan area in the country last year — topping out near 12% — and remains higher than the national average, especially in housing.
The state is not one of the early primary states where candidates have spent most of their time. Yet it could still play a vital role in the Republican nomination, with its primary coming one week after Super Tuesday contests that have historically reshaped the field and convinced lower-performing candidates to drop out.
And it could play the decisive role in the general election contest against Biden. Erickson calls Georgia “the swingiest swing state in the nation.”
Confirmed candidates attending the event also include US Senator Tim Scott of neighboring South Carolina, former Vice President Mike Pence, former United Nations Ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy.
Two other governors attending have not entered the 2024 contest but are often mentioned as possible future candidates: Georgia’s Kemp and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin.