Former President Donald Trump and other GOP presidential candidates announced and expected will brandish their Second Amendment creds at the NRA’s annual meeting.
Republican presidential candidates both announced and expected will take the stage of the National Rifle Association’s annual marquee meeting on Friday, stepping up to bolster their pro-gun creds even as the issue threatens a divide with the party’s young people and moderates.
Former President Donald Trump, who was the first Republican candidate to declare his bid for the White House, will for the second straight year headline the National Rifle Association-Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Forum at the group’s annual meeting.
Former Vice President Mike Pence – who has said he is weighing a presidential campaign – will also speak at the event, as will former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who announced his bid for the presidency earlier this month.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, another official 2024 candidate, will deliver a message via video. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose 2024 announcement is considered merely a formality and who is expected to be Trump’s biggest rival during the primary, will also address the conference via video message.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina will similarly appear on video. Scott announced an exploratory committee for a presidential run earlier this week.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and longshot presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy are slated to speak as well, among others.
The timing of the event may prove inopportune for the GOP, highlighting the conflict between the party’s staunch commitment to its core principles and the growing tide of public opinion – and exposing in stark relief a Republican vulnerability that may prove crucial in the 2024 elections.
The NRA convention comes just days after a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky, killed five people and injured eight others. That shooting happened as the country was still reeling from a massacre at the The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, that left three 9-year-old children dead as well as three adults. The shootings renewed cries for greater gun control measures, including – after initial resistance – from Tenneessee’s Republican governor.
It’s not an unfamiliar position for Republicans.
Last year, the meeting took place in Houston only a few days after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Trump spoke at the meeting, rejecting calls for greater gun control, and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas showed up – though some other Republicans opted to video-record remarks instead or not attend at all.
Gun laws and gun control are vulnerable policy issues with the wider electorate amid the relentless pace of mass shootings – despite a core base of robust support within the GOP.
Fifty-eight percent of voters favor more strict gun laws, including 56% of independents – and a third of Republicans, according to a poll conducted earlier this year by YouGov and the Economist.
Young voters especially favor more stringent laws. A poll conducted last month by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School found that 63% of all 18- to 29-year-olds want to see stricter laws, including a majority across all education, gender, race and income demographics.
The GOP has struggled to court young voters and watched the bloc turn out in large numbers for Democrats during the 2022 midterm elections, contributing to a deeply underwhelming night for Republicans, who failed to retake the Senate and only barely eked out a majority in the House.
Some of the speakers, including Trump and Pence, will travel from the NRA event in Indianapolis to Nashville, Tennessee – the site of the Covenant School shooting – for a Republican National Committee fundraising event, where they will try to woo deep-pocketed donors.
But when Trump and his GOP rivals take the stage at the NRA meeting Friday, the larger electorate will not be top of mind. As the primary season gets underway, 2024 hopefuls are focused first on the Republican base.
