Who is the MAGA base's favorite member of Trump's Cabinet? How do they feel about Israel? Do they want an immigration moratorium? And most importantly: Who do they back in 2028? Rich Baris joins to dive into the straw poll of AmFest 2025, and look at what it reveals about the grassroots base one year into Trump 2.0. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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All right, welcome back to the Charlie Kirk Show.
Hour two is underway, and it is the hour that everybody's been waiting for.
The results of our 2025 Turning Point Action Amfest straw poll.
So this is something we do at every Amfest, and we've got a major publication that's going to go live with it in just a second as well.
And here to unpack what we found from this straw poll is the one and only Rich Barris, big data poll, who conducted it on our behalf.
Rich, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me as always.
Yeah, well, Richard Andrew.
Let's start with your reaction, your experience at Amfest.
You were there.
You and Mark Mitchell led a breakout.
Just, you know, 30,000 foot view.
What was it like in there?
And maybe what's the disconnect between maybe what some people are saying online versus what you experienced in person?
Well, first, visually, and I know, I actually know this to be a fact, but visually, this looked like the biggest AmFest ever.
And you could see it.
If you've been to an AmFest before, this one was just as a matter of attendance and everything that was going on was huge.
It was huge.
So congratulations on that because we're talking about a massive attendance, folks.
And secondly, you know, the biggest thing that'll stand out is, you know, the media narrative and the infighting that they projected was going on over there.
And we'll see this with the results of the straw poll.
Yeah, people debate.
And that's what Turning Point has always been about.
But people there, people in attendance, right?
And the folks who were talking and interacting with people agree on so much more.
I mean, that's what it comes to.
That's the biggest disconnect that the media, as usual, always projects.
There was a lot more agreement than there was disagreement.
Yeah.
And you, so some top-level marks that you were just telling me about is, so this was the youngest straw poll result based on just who took the poll, right?
It was, it skewed the youngest of any that we've ever had because, you know, even we struggle sometimes, Rich, with getting the students to take the darn straw poll.
This time, we got lots, lots, just the average age of who took the poll was younger.
So it's actually going to give us a more interesting insight in some ways about where younger Americans, younger conservative voters, younger base voters, where their heads are at right now.
And it was also the most responses that we've ever gotten at a straw poll.
And what's remarkable about that, Rich, is that, you know, we intentionally delayed this until we sent it out overnight after day three and into day four.
We wanted people to have this full experience before we asked them these questions.
So the response rate on a relatively short turn was pretty remarkable.
Just explain that from a pollster's perspective, Rich.
Well, straw polls can be a bit of a upholster's nightmare, right?
Because as the pollster, you're like, I want to start early.
I want to get this going.
But you also want people to have the experience before they answer some of these questions.
And honestly, it'll become very evident when we show people some of the questions, right?
Why we want people to hear things first, which can be challenging because for people who are taking it and the pollster, because you are now limiting yourself on the reaction time.
So we expect a certain percentage.
And just from experience, we know what that is.
This blew up.
And you said it.
And I was going to say it if you didn't.
This is the biggest America Fest straw poll ever.
It's a very large sample, which means, folks, it's representative.
It's statistically significant.
So I was over the moon.
You know, I mean, as a pollster, I was over the moon.
When I, you know, one minute, you're logging in, you're seeing the responses come in.
The next minute, you see an explosion.
So I think, too, it also tells you that the respondents, Andrew, also were kind of hanging back and saying, let me, you know, let me open it up.
I'll take what I think I can.
We always give people a little bit of time to complete it.
And then once they had the experience, they felt it was sufficient for them, they all filled it out almost at once on that last day.
A huge amount came in, which was great for us.
It really was.
It was great.
So, you know, I'm toying with everybody wants to know the who do we want as our 2028 GOP nominee.
I don't think anybody's, you know, I'm toying with delaying it, but I think we just have to, you know, I think we just have to do the reveal here, Rich.
What is not surprising is who won, but what is surprising is by what margin.
So, you know, drum roll, please.
Studio, let's go ahead and throw up image 166.
Who does the Amfest attendees, who do they want as their 2028 GOP?
228.
And that big old bar right at the top is, of course, JD Vance.
The next closest was Marco Rubio, the great Secretary of State in the Trump administration.
Rich, break this down.
JD Vance is running away with the who do we want as the 2028 GOP nominee.
Explain the significance of that graph.
And the consistency of him polling at that level, I don't think he ever polled below 75%, folks.
That's well over a super majority.
And I will tell you this, like we said just a moment ago, there were people who are waiting back, waiting to see.
And when the vice president gave his speech, it just went to that level.
Never looked back.
I mean, it was, you know, some people, you know, sitting back, I can't wait to see what the vice president has to say.
This has never happened.
Andrew, this has never.
I've done a lot of straw polls at a lot of different events.
We've done a lot of Amfest ones, right?
This has never happened.
There has never been such widespread agreement over, because what are they really telling you when they're picking who they want for the future nominee, right?
What is the base?
What is the turning point family telling you?
This is the direction we want to go in the future.
This is what we want for the future of the movement, for the future of the party.
And there, you know, the media wanted to talk about all of the different factions in the coalition, right?
This is near, you know, it's nearly unanimous.
It's overwhelming.
And we asked a lot of other questions.
It doesn't matter what the answers for different demographic groups, how one favored others, something over the other.
It doesn't matter.
When it comes to this question, who do you want for your nominee?
Everybody is in agreement.
There's not a single group that's disconnected or has a different opinion.
You know, always, and this is statistics, you're always going to have marginal support for something over another, right?
I mean, that's just the way it works.
This is about as uniformity as you get.
Close to uniformity as you get.
So just so people have the exact numbers, it's 84.2% chose JD Vance.
4.8%, so just under 5%, chose Marco Rubio.
2.9% chose Ron DeSantis.
1.8% chose Don Jr.
0.3% chose Ted Cruz.
And 0.4% chose Yunkin.
I'm not sure why the orders got swapped there.
But so that is basically the field, you know, Undecided was at 2.5%.
And we had 3.1% write-ins, right?
So I don't know if there was anybody worth mentioning in the write-in section, Rich, but that is the field that people most predict for 2028.
There is something worth mentioning, all right?
And that is there is there are more than a few responses for Donald J. Trump for a third term, right?
But again, I mean, you're going to get that some, and that just shows you how much the president is loved, right, by the base.
But there's outside of that, you know, there's a representation of libertarian wing.
You get a few for Thomas Massey and stuff like that.
But it's not, you know, you can see the percentage guys collectively what that comes to.
It's still not that much.
I mean, this poll, the results of this poll are very clear.
We don't get results like this.
It just doesn't happen.
Hey, Rich, I have a question.
In the history of a turning point straw poll that you've conducted, have we ever seen a question like this get, you know, have a front runner with this much margin of victory?
Nope.
That's what I was just about to say.
Especially, I mean, could you imagine this early?
We did turning point straw polls going into 24 even, and it was a robust field.
There's some pretty, you know, significant debate between who, do we want Ron DeSantis?
Do we want President Trump?
President Trump was always winning that and winning it overwhelmingly.
But this early particularly, it's not because we don't have a vision of where other candidates would take the party, Andrew.
That's not what's going on here.
It's that people do understand the differences in whatever minor or major they may be.
They understand it.
They are choosing JD Vance.
They're choosing the vice president.
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Charlie loved Christmas, and we love Christmas around here.
So Merry Christmas to all of you.
We are a mere three days out from the big day.
I'm very excited about that.
So, Blake, I promised you that you were going to get to do the big reveal.
It is about to be, it's about ready to be thrown up.
So, I don't know.
You want to take it away, Blake?
Yeah, it'll be ready by the time I get to it.
We were, we actually were shopping what questions to put into the straw poll.
We just did it the night, I think Saturday night.
We were talking about what to put into it.
And obviously, we had the stuff, we've had debates over the past year about America's relationship with Israel, how it relates to stuff in the Middle East.
We had people bring it up on stage.
It was a recurring theme in our member exclusives interviews.
So we just said, throw in to the attendees, what best describes what your view of Israel is?
Do you view them as our number one ally, as just one ally of many, or do you think they're not an American ally, which some prominent figures have said.
And do we have that result ready to throw up?
Yeah, let's throw up 178.
And I think the result was pretty refreshing.
You got, you said 33% said it was our top ally.
53% went for one of many.
And 13% said not an ally, which I think you mentioned it is the youngest group we've had at Amfest.
And I think it does put into perspective, I think, one ally of many, it gets an outright majority.
I think that would probably describe the position Charlie was in over the last couple of years, that they are a friendly country.
They're a country we care about, but they're not necessarily this monomaniacal focus that we must be fixated on to the exclusion of other potential allies.
And I think this also shows only 13% say not an ally, that they're basically at best a neutral or perhaps even a hostile country to us.
This is a take you hear a lot online.
It's a take you hear a lot on X.
It's a take some influencers really push.
But I don't think it's really, it's taking over the GOP in the way that a lot of critics have tried to argue.
Yeah.
So, so, Rich, if you go online, you would be entirely surprised by the fact that within, you know, a statistically significant sample of the youngest and the youngest sample set that we've ever had from an Amphest straw poll, that 13.3%, like you, if you went online, you would think it would be like 50-50.
What do you make of this poll result?
And what's your message to the GOP with this in mind?
You know, neither Laura or I were surprised by this.
And we were thinking and comparing it to what we see.
And it really has been a trend with the general public, not just among the base of the Republican Party.
Look, the internet is real, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's really representative, right?
I mean, that's the difference people have to keep reminding themselves when they see these narrative wars and these pushes online.
This is basically representative, too, of what we heard walking around and talking to people.
I mean, Andrew, and same thing with winning the midterms, by the way.
That was the number one question I got walking around talking with different people.
They would say, oh, this is, you know, great.
And I understand the debate, but we really, you know, what can we do to win?
We want to win.
That was overwhelming.
Just walking around the place.
So a lot of this didn't surprise me.
I do think, though, that it is a bit of a wake-up call to, you know, the older guard of the GOP who are used to, they've become, there's an expectation, you know, that Israel will get a always, you know, like a bit of a privileged or special place in the conversation.
And that's not where the future really sees our, you know, when it comes to, you know, where we prioritize our public foreign policy.
That's just not the future that people see, especially among younger people.
So that's something they'll have to come to grip with, but it doesn't mean there's this outward hatred or anti-Semitism.
It's just like, hey, look, we have been put last for a very long time.
We just want to be put first.
And we don't really think that, you know, questioning the old orthodoxy or the right is a bad thing.
And I'm not necessarily sure it is myself, Andrew, you know, to be honest.
No, no, totally.
I share some of that.
I think you articulated it well.
And in hour one, Rich, I said, you know, what's interesting about Amfest and Turning Point in these conferences, we're looking to define the dominant core of a winning coalition, right?
The dominant center cut.
And so you're going to get these really loud voices that want us to be anti-Israel.
You're going to get these really loud voices that want us to, you know, essentially say that Israel is the most important topic that there is because it's a proxy war for other things, whatever.
What we found here is that, you know, my takeaway from this poll, Rich, was that maybe a couple years ago, maybe five, 10 years, before October 2023, October 7th, that you maybe would have seen that chunk that said it's our top ally be a little larger.
And where it looks like the consensus of the movement is really going is that, hey, Israel is an ally, but they're one of many.
And so let's just put our own country first.
I think that is the new consensus that is emerging on the right.
And that's an important insight to glean from this.
I really believe that.
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Without further ado, Rich, we got to get to these other polls, okay?
These other poll questions.
And I think they're really important.
So we've already kind of mentioned what are the most important topics for people.
Blake kind of already did the big reveal.
165.
Winning the midterms is the most important by far.
Let's go ahead and show that image 165.
All right.
See how much it stands out.
It's like, you know, it's a sore thumb right there.
It is by far and away the number one topic.
And to Blake's point, it kind of had me wishing we wouldn't have done that.
Just so we could have seen what the other ones.
But what we see behind it are voter integrity, voter ID at 9.3%, the affordability crisis, which I'm not surprised at at 8.1%, mass deportations, 5.3%, and accountability for deep state law fare at 4.2%, rounding out the top five issues.
It's really the midterms.
Yeah, go ahead, Blake.
Ending the war in Ukraine dead last.
I think, what is that?
0.4%?
It's well under 1%.
And yeah.
I noticed that too.
Ending the war in Ukraine is the last.
I think because we're not sending them money like we used to be.
I mean, that's what really, I think, brought it home for people is it felt like we're running these huge deficits.
We've got this huge tax burden.
The economy sucks.
And we're spending all our money on a war abroad to fight Putin.
And that's what made it.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Rich.
Well, I was just going to say, I think it's indicative of two things.
One is how many problems people think that we have, right?
That has to get before that because I don't think there's much support out there for the Ukraine war anymore.
And then, two, is I do think, and I'm just from speaking to people about this, I think everybody pretty much sees the ends in sight.
It's really kind of only a matter of time among the base anyway.
They definitely do.
Whereas, you know, the public, that's a little bit, that would be a different result if we were polling the general public.
But as far as the, you know, not adding the winning the midterms, I do hear what you guys are saying, but in the back of my mind, I'm thinking, I think I am glad we did it this way because it does show that despite, again, what the media narrative was or was trying to spin, at the end of the day, like the turning point family wants to win.
I mean, despite everything that they tried to showcase is division, they want to win.
And the reason for that is simple because they know what's unlike maybe some of the middle of the country, middle of the road, and less politically active parts of our coalition.
They don't understand what's going to happen if Democrats win.
I mean, that's what it comes down to.
Well, the base does.
They know what kind of turbulence, if that's even the appropriate word, we're in for.
What's on the horizon there?
Yeah, people get it.
Yeah, they get it.
Let's go ahead and throw this one I thought was really, really surprised me, actually.
And this was the what are the biggest threats facing the country?
Let's go ahead and throw up 164, biggest threats facing America right now.
And up at the top, now this was a rank order poll.
So people could go one through whatever the number was.
And by far, radical Islam, Rich, did this surprise you?
Radical Islam, surprisingly.
And then socialism, Marxism is number two, mass migration number three.
Yeah, you know what?
It did a little, but then when I was looking at it, I thought this.
The first two that really are at the top of the rank distribution are ideologies that the base feels are just not compatible with the American ideals, the American way of life.
And then everything else kind of is stemmed.
Yes, there are problems, there are social problems, there are economic problems.
But if we could tackle this other thing first, which is that fundamentally, we've been letting in a lot of people who are not really compatible or not, you know, that, and some of those other problems are stemming from that.
So, yeah, I mean, I did see where they were, where they were coming from with this.
And then when after you get past rank two, into rank three through five, we start to see, you know, those other, you know, more traditional things that we would expect people to say.
So, you know, given that, of course, large faith-based, you know, obviously this is a where there's a population that is extremely Christian.
So they're extremely pro-America, extremely nationalist.
So they're looking at some of these ideas that over in the long term, Andrew, it's almost like some of the other things are just symptoms to a greater problem and we have to deal with the greater problem.
Blake, what's your take on the top five here?
Number one is just a big testament, frankly, to Charlie, who was really fixated on that topic in the last few months of his life.
He talked about it a lot.
And I think he deserves some credit for really bringing it back.
In some ways, you could say it feels like a time warp to 2002 or something.
And then we went through a pretty long period where it was more in the background, yet it still remains a concern.
And the reason it's a concern is because of issue number three: mass migration.
We still, we went to fight them over there so that we could then import them over here and then have to fight them here again.
And Charlie really saw that when he was in the UK.
He was really becoming concerned.
It was hitting him.
We're going to have this very large, often very radical Islamic component to Western societies that just did not exist before 15, 20 years ago.
And I think he really did a lot of work to spread that awareness among the base.
Besides that, I think it's really interesting that corrupt courts, so to speak, has broke into the top five.
That's expressing this realization that the biggest obstacle to a lot of President Trump's core agenda, certainly on mass deportations, or DEI, is this fact there's just judges who seem to have really taken it to heart that even if they have no legal basis, no constitutional basis for what they're doing, they can gum up the process for years on end.
If you need the Supreme Court to step in for anything the president wants to do, you can really slow down the agenda in a big way.
I was most surprised besides, I was really surprised that low fertility finished second from last.
That was a big topic.
Charlie's talked about.
It's a big thing.
A lot of people have talked about the need to revive the American family, the need for people to have more kids.
But we didn't successfully get it out of the basement on this poll.
It was right there, just only above technology and AI as a concern for America.
Can I just add something to that real quick?
Because I was too.
I was stunned by that.
And then I remembered that Benny gave this blockbuster speech.
And on the big screen, he threw up this graph showing a recovery in fertility rates, especially among Christians in general.
And I thought, I hope that didn't impact that because it showed that there has been a lot of improvement in recent years as opposed to what was really, and I still believe is an existential threat to our culture, to our way of life, to our, you know, being able to, in perpetuity, continue the American experience.
So I thought about it and I said, well, there was that.
And that speech was attended.
That was a barn.
He really, he lit the house on fire with that.
It was great.
But I wonder if that didn't have something to do with it or people in general aren't thinking that we're making more progress with it.
But like Blake, I think that's something that, you know, myself included, I mean, we need to keep an eye on because, you know, while there has been progress, it's not nearly enough.
I want to go to another one here, Rich.
And this is a fascinating one.
Pick for your approval rating of various members of the Trump cabinet.
And I think some people might be surprised at who came out on top.
You know, I thought for sure it was going to be Secretary Rubio.
But let's go ahead and throw up 163.
And the way that you walk with the audience through, Rich, how you had people answer this question.
So it was basically the same way that a pollster will ask about the approval for the president, only this time you said, look, we want to ask about the cabinet members one by one.
Tell us whether you approve or disapprove.
And of course, gave them the option for strongly somewhat.
And can I just go ahead?
Oh, it's up.
So I can just go ahead and say it.
Look, Secretary Hegset, Pete blew it away.
83% who strongly approve of the job that he's doing.
I mean, overall, with the exception of a few here and there, Pam Bondi stands out.
Others are just not as well known, right?
And they're not in the public light as much, like Doug Bargham, for instance.
For the exception of a few, the cabinet members are doing well.
RFK did extremely well.
Robert Kennedy Jr. did extremely well.
I mean, incredible.
But Hegset definitely came out on top here.
Secretary of Rubio did strong as well.
But strongly approved for him was 79%.
But it really does come out.
You know, I think it's the fighting spirit, Andrew.
You know, when the media comes after him and says, we're going to, we're going to, this is a war crime.
We're going to impeach you for this.
He says, yeah, and I'm going to smoke another narco-terrorist.
I mean, this guy, you got the base wants their leaders to fight.
They want their leaders to fight for them.
They want them to fight back.
And Pete Hexaf fights back.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's exactly right.
You know, who surprised me on this as well was, and I was looking, was Secretary Christy Noam, Department of Homeland Security.
I actually thought she performed extraordinarily well in this poll.
And I had been hearing that maybe she wouldn't perform as well in this poll.
So she got 72.8% strongly approved, 17.3% somewhat approve, right?
And so people love deportations, Rich.
They love the deportations.
That's what it comes down to.
And I was thinking much along the lines of what you just said, but she's a part of what people see to be Trump's biggest success or part of that entire issue.
And on that note, yeah, Rich, why don't we just throw it up?
The 169 Trump 2.0 biggest accomplishments.
We have a minute left in this segment.
And it's deportations and securing the border.
I mean, one and two, those are the things people are most happy about.
Yeah, it's overwhelming.
And you know what?
On this note, and I know we're getting close to the end of the segment.
On this note, the administration is starting to do a better job of reminding the American people about this accomplishment.
The base knows the base is giving him credit for it.
He's got to do a little bit better.
They know that.
It's good that he's trying because unfortunately, it's a sad testament to the American voter.
When you fix a problem, they forget.
And you have to constantly remind them that remember what it was.
The president did that in his speech the other, the prime time speech, by the way.
And that was the right move.
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Rich, your lovely wife gave you an insight on that fertility rate thing.
What was the point there?
Yeah, the point was a lot of after you got past that, you know, first and second tier, a lot of it was about affordability.
And maybe people, you know, are worried or concerned about being able to afford to have a lot of children, right?
Or other people's ability to have other children.
So you put that stuff first in your mind when you're considering these as priorities.
And I hadn't thought about that point, but it's probably some of that has to do with it.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think affordability, I mean, also, you know, the thing that occurs to me in that particular venue with those particular people, there's so many babies and kids running around.
You know, like probably those people think, you know, we're going to have a lot of babies.
That's not our top concern.
So that's my other theory on that.
And we have the most responded to youngest by average age of the respondent, Straw Poll, that we are unpacking with big data poll, Rich Barris, the pollster that conducted the poll on our behalf.
And this one, Rich, I think I'm just going to say it.
Backstage, I had a conversation with a very important person that we're mapping out 2026 in the midterms.
And I'm telling you, you know, you've got this issue of base fatigue or maybe lack of enthusiasm, whatever it is.
We saw this with some of the special elections.
We struggle in off years.
The question is, how do you get people energetic?
And I looked at the early results on this, this question, this next one, and I said, I'm telling you, I know people are terrified of it.
I know that the rank and file Republican in D.C. is terrified of it.
The base wants this.
If you want to drive base turnout, lean into this issue.
Find a way to thread the needle so you don't freak out the people that are in these contested elections, I'm sure.
But I'm telling you, this will drive turnout.
I think it's a winner even amongst some Democrats that don't want to even admit it or independents that don't want to admit it.
They don't necessarily want to say it out loud.
We asked the question, Rich, would you support an immigration moratorium?
Go ahead and throw up 168.
This did way better than even I anticipated, 168.
Look at that number.
The purple number.
90%.
90% of the attendees at America Fest, which again is those, these are the grassroots.
This is like the plumbers, the electricians.
These are everyday people that attend this and lots of students.
They want an immigration moratorium.
Now, I am not naive.
I know that the Republicans in Congress are not ready to tackle this issue.
I strongly encourage you to reconsider your appetite for this issue ahead of the midterms.
Rich, what's your takeaway here?
Yeah, I would say suck it up, buttercup.
I mean, if you remember when President Trump posted that he would do the moratorium, we actually polled that even nationally and it did extremely well.
That was right before Tennessee, the special election in Tennessee 7.
And if you remember, Emerson had a poll.
It was very close.
It was only two points.
And then I came on the show to tell you that once he did that, how much extremely enthusiastic and certainty to vote jumped by double digits.
And I do attribute that larger margin than some people expected to have come from giving him a little bit of a shot, a wake-up call to the base, wake-up call to the voters.
This is popular.
Not only is it popular, I mean, look at some of the other questions.
You know, mass migration is viewed as an existential threat to people.
So to have this as a backbone issue, which you can then deliver an economic message out of, right?
Like so many of our problems come from this immigration issue basically being broken since Hart Seller, right?
So this is a gold mine, Andrew, a gold mine.
So I mean, strongly suggest, I would tell them, you got to do it.
You want to win.
Do it.
Lean into it.
Make it the case.
Oh, sorry.
Yeah, it's just, yeah, honestly, when I saw it get 90%, the first question that came to mind was, do they all know what a moratorium is?
But listen, go ahead.
Go ahead.
It shows the energy for the base because in practice, would a full moratorium, would it really have 90% support?
I'm not sure.
I kind of like the idea, but I'm also, I realize that would be pretty dramatic for a lot of people.
But I think it shows the energy on this.
It shows how people are enthusiastic to see a sea change on immigration, that there's really been an expansion of what people see as possible in American politics.
Oh, you actually can secure your border.
You actually can deport people, especially criminals, people who hate America, and so on.
And so people are also entertaining.
Oh, you actually can stop.
You don't need to let people into your country necessarily.
That's a choice that you can make.
We've also had horrific scandals lately, right, that highlighted some of these in Minnesota and there are others, right?
They haven't gotten as much media attention, but people are seeing this, you know, when they open up their social media.
They are seeing this.
And again, we did poll a very similar question nationally and it got 55% support.
So, you know, I think that people are at a point where they understand that this thing has been kind of like a runaway, you know, car for years.
Somebody's got to pump the brake until we figure out what it is, until we get our hands on what has happened and what needs to happen going forward.
Because we just, how much more of this can we take, right?
How much more of this can we take?
Well, Rich, thank you for partnering with us and turning point action, getting this poll done, this straw poll done.
And I think the results are wonderfully revealing about where, again, that core center winning coalition is ideologically where they're at on the issues, where they're at on Trump, where they're at on Vance, where they're at on the cabinet.