At the annual AmericaFest hosted by Turning Point Action, a straw poll found that the majority of young Republican attendees wanted Donald Trump to be the GOP candidate in 2024. The only disagreement was over who he should select as his running mate: Vivek Ramaswamy or Tucker Carlson.
Turning Point Action polled 1,113 people online on December 17 and 18 while they were in Phoenix, Arizona, for the TPUSA conference.
The statistics reveal that Trump is far and away the favorite, with 82.6% of people voting for the former president. Vivek Ramaswamy came in third with 5.8% of the vote, closely followed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis with 7.6%. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who has been receiving a lot of attention from the media and has been gaining momentum as of late, came in fifth.
Of the 2.5% who remained “undecided,” little over 1%, or 12 people, backed Haley at the Trump-friendly gathering.
Nearly 40% of voters have already decided that former Fox News host Tucker Carlson should be Donald Trump’s running mate if he receives the Republican presidential nomination. Meanwhile, Ramaswamy was chosen by an additional 25.7%. The comments made by both guys during the conference were newsworthy.
Young conservatives have strong policy preferences. Border security and “deporting Biden-era illegal immigrants” were deemed the most critical issues by attendees, surpassing “election integrity” and “defunding the deep state,” which were considered second and third, respectively. Meanwhile, their least important concern was the DeSantis campaign’s signature issue—eliminating federal programs promoting diversity, fairness, and inclusion.
In line with a broader trend on the right, the poll also reveals that young people are becoming more wary of providing foreign help to Ukraine while being generally in favor of Israel’s conflict with Hamas. With 55.4% in favor, delivering deadly assistance to Tel Aviv was the overwhelming favorite, while fewer than 1% wanted it sent to Kyiv, and 39.4% said the US shouldn’t provide weapons to Israel or Ukraine.
The poll indicated that young Republicans associated with Turning Point are unhappy with RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, even though both parties are trying to win over young voters. An overwhelming majority of 87% believe she ought to resign, and 56% say they would be “more willing” to give to the party if she did.
When Harmeet Dhillon challenged McDaniel earlier this year, TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk backed her up.
