DENVER — “Is Colorado Trump country?” asked Centennial Institute director Jeff Hunt after Donald Trump’s speech to the Western Conservative Summit, billed as the largest gathering of conservatives outside of Washington, D.C., ahead of the Republican National Convention itself.
That’s still an open question after the presumptive Republican nominee’s speech, which received a standing ovation an hour into his remarks to the group. At the same time, the room wasn’t completely full and many attendees expressed reservations about Trump to the Washington Examiner after he spoke.
In many ways, this was Ted Cruz country. The summit is filled with active social conservatives. Trump lost 34 delegates to Cruz in Colorado’s caucuses and blasted it as a “rigged” system. In a race against Hillary Clinton, Trump can count on most of them. But some wounds still linger.
“He’s a sore loser,” said an attendee from Colorado Springs. Others who didn’t want their names to be used so they could speak candidly felt they had no choice but to get behind the presumptive Republican nominee but their questions about his commitment to conservative principles lingered.
The line-up isn’t entirely friendly to Trump either. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., spoke Friday night about the importance of American exceptionalism. He is a leading Never Trump proponent. Ben Shapiro, a Breitbart refugee (he severed all ties after the controversy about how the site reacted to former Trump campaign manager treated erstwhile Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields), is schedule to speak Saturday. So is Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz’s running mate and a 2016 GOP presidential candidate who hasn’t endorsed Trump.
“Trump came here with some fences to mend,” said another activist who didn’t want to be quoted by name. It remains to be seen whether he succeeded. The businessman’s talk certainly went over well with most of the conservative activists present. Compared to the protests in downtown Denver, at which at least three people were arrested, featuring people pounding on a Trump pinata, the summit was a lovefest.
People yelled and screamed outside the convention center. One image broadcast by the Denver Post might have been welcomed by the Trump camp: white anti-Trump protesters shouting at a black woman in a pro-Trump t-shirt. The reality TV star has been struggling to diversify his support since effectively clinching the nomination.
Yet Trump and his supporters didn’t always go out of his way to make nice. “I learned so much during the primaries,” he said. “That’s when I learned it’s rigged, people.” Does that include the Colorado caucuses, which Cruz won as socially conservative Trump backer Rick Santorum did in 2012?
“You’re either with us or against us,” said Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee in a speech where she settled scores with Trump’s liberal and conservative detractors. It’s a slogan George W. Bush used in the war on terror following the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Palin had little patience for #NeverTrump. In her telling, it was a rodent-like coalition best described by the acronym “Republican Against Trump” — “RAT.”
The former John McCain running mate had nice things to say about Colorado’s newly minted GOP Senate nominee too, military veteran and Tea Party-backed black conservative Darryl Glenn. “I am in awe of this man’s accomplishments and his willingness to serve on a new battleground now,” she said. But her speech was defined by supporting Trump.
It was funny to her, she said, to “see the ‘splody heads keep ‘sploding over this movement.”
The Western Conservative Summit was filled with the kind of people Trump will need to win over. He did well with socially conservative evangelicals in the primaries, but the more they went to church, the less commanding his performance was. Organized social conservatism was largely with Cruz and to a lesser extent Marco Rubio, though they are warming to the businessman now given Clinton’s hostility.
Here in Colorado, a swing state with a large Hispanic vote, some Republicans are already running away from Trump. Right before the presumptive nominee’s Western Conservative Summit speech, Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., put out a video that didn’t use Trump’s name but the implications were clear.
The campaign video featured many minorities, especially Latinos, speaking favorably about the GOP congressional incumbent. “Mike is a very nice guy,” said one young woman. “He’s a really nice guy,” the next speaker echoed, before going into the number of push-ups the lawmaker can do. The ad goes on to talk about Coffman’s leadership on behalf of comprehensive immigration reform and his support for the Ethiopian immigrant community.
“We’re going to appoint Supreme Court justices who you’re going to be very happy with,” Trump told the Western Conservative Summit. “Such a big thing.” He went on to say the Republican primary was brutal, saying his opponents were nasty to him and admitting he was nasty to them. But he used the Supreme Court to plead for unity. “There were a lot of bad things said,” he remarked.
“Some of them just can’t understand the importance of a victory for the Republicans,” Trump said. “And one of the best things we can say about the judges … We’re going to appoint at least three.” Without a conservative Supreme Court, he said, we could end up like Venezuela where “they’re fighting for loaves of bread in the street.”
Trump is going to have to keep fighting.
