CPAC Used to Be an “Absolute Rager.” Now, Some Young Conservatives “Don’t Even Know” What It Is As the annual conference descends on Texas, what claims to be the “largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world” has fallen flat with younger Republicans. “Definitely looking for my future husband,” then 19-year-old Erin Moore tweeted from CPAC in 2015. A GQ reporter who fired up Tinder from the event a year later called it “the friskiest Republican bash of the year. ” Terry and Katie Schilling, who met at the conference in 2007 and went on to work for Sam Brownback’s presidential run before getting married, refer to their children as Brownback babies: “There’s a whole lot of marriages that came from that race.” The reality is that now though, in 2026, CPAC is dead. Touted as “the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world,” the conference has been abandoned by even its own trusted headliners; President Trump is reportedly set to be absent for the first time in a decade, Elon Musk is nowhere in sight, and Vice President JD Vance, a regular attendee who last year used his speech to solidify his role as the movement’s “prince,” has opted out so far. For this year’s conference, attendees descended on the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, a sprawling complex with the decor and disorientation of a docked megacruise, for the affair, which lasts four days. CPAC was founded in 1974 and in past years has drawn crowds of over 10,000. The chairman of the group which hosts it, Matt Schlapp, was accused in a lawsuit of groping an employee on Herschel Walker’s Senate campaign in October of 2022. He denied the allegations, and the lawsuit was dropped in 2024 following a $480,000 settlement reportedly paid through an insurance policy. Everyone from Marjorie Taylor Greene to Ron DeSantis to Mike Pence spoke at CPAC in its heyday. Ronald Reagan gave the keynote speech in its inaugural year, introducing his “Shining City Upon a Hill,” vision for America and returning frequently. Trump effectively launched his political career there in 2011, establishing himself as a frontrunner in the Republican party, and Sarah Palin even downed a soda on stage in 2013, protesting then Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign to curb obesity by reducing sugary drinks. Since the pandemic, though, the energy has palpably dimmed; viral moments are far and few, numbers have thinned, absences in the speaker lineup are harder to overlook, and tickets, ranging anywhere from $900 for the VIP experience to $30,000 for the platinum plus experience, consistently fail to sell with the same ease. The lineup this year has fueled MAGA infighting, most likely the result of the inclusion of ex-Congressman Matt Gaetz and former White House chief strategist turned MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon. Bannon’s proximity to Jeffrey Epstein has come under renewed scrutiny as additional documents have continued to surface. CPAC 2026 has highlighted generational rifts within the Republican party, and its timing—amidst a highly controversial war as Trump tanks in the polls—has even the loyalists removing their red caps. “You’ve got a war going on in Iran; you’ve got inflation going up, gas prices going up, the economy not particularly faring well at all. And then these guys who claim to be at the very center of the MAGA movement are out there throwing themselves a party,” Kassam added. “It’s so tone-deaf.” Speakers from the administration at this year’s conference include Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. “I’ve advised clients not to attend CPAC,” said Mitchell Jackson, the PR pro who represents high-profile, contentious clients like Candace Owens, Adam Friedland, and Clavicular. “It’s irrelevant to their audiences.” Other notable guests this year include YouTuber Nick Shirley, commentator Benny Johnson, and far-right provocateur activist Jack Posobiec—a roster that underscored the organizers’s continued drift toward online personalities and influencers, though not ones that most convincingly capture the zeitgeist or shared sensibilities of the younger MAGA cohort. “The average age of CPAC attendees now mirrors Congress,” CJ Pearson, the 23-year-old conservative influencer and former co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council, told Vanity Fair. “With the survival of the conservative movement predicated upon the next generation, I hope that they figure out a way to turn it around.” While the administration’s speakers may not have been the most high-profile, this year’s program strongly leaned on international personalities, perhaps a subtle diversion from the bitter infighting playing out at home. The exiled Iranian opposition figure Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi was confirmed to address crowds, alongside a “MAGA vs. Mullah Madness” panel featuring victims of the Iranian regime. Poland’s populist President Karol Nawrocki was slated to appear, joined by former disgraced British PM Liz Truss and Eduardo and Flávio, the sons of former Brazil dictator Jair Bolsonaro. Elsewhere, CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran’s Mark Wallace and Senator Ted Cruz, both vocal supporters of the war, rounded out the lineup, proponents for an aggressive international foreign policy that sits increasingly uneasy with the young conservative movement. Brett Cooper, a 24-year-old conservative commentator with a YouTube show consisting of over 1.6 million subscribers, has recently been notably vocal about the war in Iran, particularly in what she sees as the lack of transparency in the administration's messaging. When asked why she didn’t attend the conference this year, she said: “Ironically, I have no comment because I literally don’t even know what CPAC is.” Roger Stone, the convicted felon and CPAC veteran, once made a point of appearing at the 2021 conference, dancing alongside rapper Forgiato Blow and taking selfies with fans outside. This year, however, even he is over it. “CPAC was the single most important gathering of conservatives in the country serving as the launching pad for the candidacy of both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump,” Stone told me via text. Now, he says, the brand has been destroyed. As for his fondest conference memories, Stone was less forthright, leaving one to presume that what happens at CPAC stays at CPAC.