ATLANTA, Ga. — After the candidates depart Cleveland, Ohio, many of them will appear at the RedState Gathering of conservative activists. Many attendees appeared visibly angry with the establishment of the Republican Party. But they are not yet sold on Donald Trump, the front-running outsider, either.
Several attendees of RedState’s watch party for Fox News’ debate of GOP presidential candidates told the Washington Examiner they think executive experience matters most as a trait the next GOP presidential nominee must possess. But the candidate who received the most frequent and sustained applause during the debate appeared to be Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
“I like Sen. Ted Cruz a lot, and worked for him on the Senate campaign, but I want someone with executive experience” said Loren Heal, an attendee from Illinois. “I’m excited about all of them [the candidates], especially the governors. I like Bobby Jindal a lot.”
The candidate who seemed to elicit the most passionate responses from the audience in Atlanta was not Donald Trump, but former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. A vocal portion of the audience repeatedly booed, and some hurled insults when the governor answered questions about immigration and education, yelling “f–k you” and chanting “bulls–t.” Bush will address the RedState crowd on Saturday afternoon.
Trump received several cheers throughout the night from the audience, but when he talked about his personal wealth some in the crowd appeared to turn against the reality TV star, imploring him to “shut up.”
When asked whether he could see himself voting for Trump, Bud Hallman, a first-time attendee at the RedState gathering from Kentucky, paused before answering.
“He has to answer a couple of questions about policy first,” Hallman said. “I hear a lot of me, me, me, and I, I, I, from Trump.”
Many in the crowd laughed whenever Trump opened his mouth to challenge a moderator or remark about the donations he has given to the other candidates present onstage.
Cruz, Bush and Trump will all be in Atlanta this weekend. In presidential election cycles past, those candidates would have traveled to the midwest for the Iowa Straw Poll previously scheduled for this weekend. But the editor of the conservative blog RedState, Erick Erickson, succeeded in helping end that tradition earlier this year.
Before the debate began, Erickson offered the crowd his own take on the man on top of the polls.
“It is my theory that as long as the other Republican candidates refuse to treat Donald Trump as a legitimate presidential candidate — and none of them do — that Donald Trump continues to be a legitimate candidate,” Erickson said.
Trump will speak to the RedState activists at a tailgate on Saturday night, outside the College Football Hall of Fame in downtown Atlanta.
