ATLANTA — Ten Republican presidential candidates will attend the RedState Gathering in Atlanta this weekend, trying to gain support from both voters and donors as the race for the Republican nomination for the 2016 presidential election kicks into high gear.
The RedState Gathering, hosted Friday and Saturday, just after the first Republican presidential debate airs on Fox News Thursday night, will bring together presidential hopefuls, conservative activists and potential donors.
“Attendees will be able to hear first-hand from the candidates without the restrictions of a debate-style format,” said Amanda Munoz, external relations director for Townhall Media. “This conference is really about the attendees and discussing the issues that matter most to the conservative base.”
The event will allow candidates to spend time away from Iowa and New Hampshire, to address their Southern constituencies instead.
“The RedState Gathering gives [candidates] an opportunity to present themselves to southern activists, reporters and bloggers, who will be involved in the nomination process,” said University of Georgia political science professor Audrey Haynes, an expert in presidential nominations and elections.
And Thursday’s Fox News debate will affect what candidates will hope to accomplish at the Gathering, Haynes said, depending on how well they perform.
“Whoever does well in Thursday’s debate, which will be difficult to do given so many candidates and so little time divided among them, will have an opportunity to show off for the southern activists of the Republican Party,” she said. “Those who did not get much time can use this to hammer away those who did, and deliver their own talking points.”
RedState Editor-in-Chief Erick Erickson, the event’s host, has challenged the invited candidates to offer their vision for America in 2020, four years after their first term as president.
“Erickson says he doesn’t want talking points at the Gathering or jabs, or Obama-bashing for that matter, but real thought,” Haynes said. “And that would be a very positive thing. That is when we will actually see the wheat separate from the chaff.”
But DuBose Porter, chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, said the individual candidates will be discussing poor policies and old-fashioned ideas at the Gathering, and he said the country needs a Democrat leader to win in 2016.
“If anything, this gathering will prove that the GOP field is nothing more than a dozen or so charlatans willing to say anythingto get elected,” Porter said in a press release. “I’m not sure who will emerge as the ‘victor’ this weekend, but if any of these candidates end up closer than a mile from the White House, the middle class loses.”
For those hoping to see a Republican in the Oval Office, though, the RedState Gathering could be a candidate’s jumpstart to winning the Republican nomination.
Haynes said candidates may not have realized until recently what an important opportunity this event can be, as some didn’t sign on until the last minute. But lesser known candidates need the exposure the Gathering brings them.
“Christie wasn’t able to come until a late July ‘schedule change.’ Trump was only recently added as Saturday’s guest speaker,” she said. “Some of the second-tier were there because they knew they needed the exposure, since they weren’t in the grown-up debate on Thursday.”
