Young Republicans are split over the future of the party, with two warring factions seeking to position themselves as the true MAGA warriors ahead of a weekend vote for control of the party’s youth arm.
On Saturday, young party members will converge in Nashville, where they’ll decide between two slates to lead the Young Republican National Federation: Grow YR, led by current YRNF Chair Hayden Padgett, and the insurgent Restore YR campaign, led by New York State Young Republicans Chair Peter Giunta.
The brawl between the two slates is both personal — including interpersonal clashes and squabbles over hotel loyalty points and committee assignments — and ideological, with both sides looking to prove their loyalty to President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. But the fight is also a microcosm of a schism ready to burst in the party at large, which is already delicately trying to chart a course for its post-Trump future.
“The fact that [Young Republicans are] divided over something like this — what type of work we should be doing — says a lot about what the potential implications are for 2026 and 2028,” said Giunta, who emphasized the importance of party unity. “In 2028, it’s really about fighting for what the future identity of the party looks like in a post-Trump era.”
Restore YR, which is seeking to unseat the current leadership in an effort to “restore trust, opportunity, and unity,” has won the endorsements of hardcore MAGA firebrands like Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), longtime Trump ally and convicted felon Roger Stone, Florida GOP Chair Evan Power, and Turning Point Action Chief Operating Officer Tyler Bowyer, who was one of several “fake electors” in Arizona in 2020.
Stone, who served as Young Republican National Federation chair from 1977 to 1979, said he endorsed the Restore YR slate “simply because they are most closely aligned with President Trump and the America First Movement within the Republican Party.”
While YRNF has never been a backbone of the GOP’s fundraising efforts, its 14,000-some foot soldiers have long served a vital role in ground game efforts for Republican campaigns, and the organization has produced some of the party’s most dedicated advocates, with more than a dozen alumni currently serving in Congress.
“The YRs are the boots on the ground,” said California Young Republicans Chair Ariana Assenmacher, who is running for co-chair on the Restore YR slate. “We’re the youth movement of the party, and so for us to be able to go into ’26 with a clear game plan of what congressional and Senate seats we’re going to be focusing on, what statewide races we’re going to be focusing on, we need to make sure that we are giving the president and the administration as much support as possible.”
In June, Giunta — who leads the Restore YR challengers — shared a litany of complaints about Padgett and his board’s leadership with the White House, alleging the incumbent YRNF administration had shown insufficient support for the president and, at times, secretly worked to undermine him.
The White House and the Republican National Committee have opted not to weigh in on the race. Spokespeople for both declined to comment.
The document accused Padgett of attempting to “strong-arm” state federations out of endorsing Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary after a straw poll facilitated by YRNF leadership in August 2023 showed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the leading candidate among young Republicans, and a mock caucus held in November of that year revealed support for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. (One of Padgett’s vice chairs previously led the group Students for Nikki Haley.)
It also accused YRNF, under Padgett’s leadership, of platforming “Trump haters” and fabricating tweets by Giunta purporting to show his opposition to Trump. Giunta threatened legal action against Padgett for orchestrating what he described as a smear campaign, which Padgett denies.
The current leadership of YRNF denies undermining the Trump campaign or administration, with the organization’s national political director Blake delCarmen telling POLITICO that Padgett and his slate “stand unequivocally with President Trump’s agenda, no ifs, ands, or buts.”
“The Grow YR Slate strongly rejects the baseless accusations leveled against us,” delCarmen said. “These claims are false and serve only to distract from our proven record of leadership, growth, and unwavering support for President Trump and the conservative agenda.”
Grow YR has been endorsed by half of the national federation’s state organizations, but the decision over which slate to endorse has also trickled down into bitter fights in some of the nation’s biggest states. In Ohio, for example, one local chapter denounced the state leadership for voting to endorse the Grow YR slate without consulting county chapter leaders.
In a statement, the local chapter, which represents Wayne and Medina counties in the Cleveland metropolitan area, called Grow YR “a reductive group of individuals largely out of step with the conservative movement as a whole,” attacking Ohio Young Republicans Chair Cody Pettit and his board as “a pack of RINOs.”
Pettit said in a statement that “YRNF under the leadership of the Grow YR Tickets has offered real progress for the national organization,” touting the organization’s fundraising and organizing successes.
The Wisconsin Young Republicans, which has also pledged its delegates to the Grow YR slate, threatened to suspend delegates who support “any candidate or slate of candidates that is opposing a previously endorsed candidate or slate of candidates for any YRNF National Board position.”
“Over the last two years, the YRNF has achieved record fundraising, unprecedented membership growth, and historic victories for Republicans across the country,” Wisconsin Young Republicans Chair Kyle Schroeder said in a statement.
California and Florida’s state federations, which endorsed Grow YR in 2023, have now endorsed Restore YR, and Texas — Padgett’s home state — is largely supporting his challengers as well. Nearly two-thirds of the state’s delegates, who are not bound to vote for the slate endorsed by their state federation, are supporting Restore YR.
Texas Young Republicans Chair Derrick Wilson, who is supporting the Grow YR slate, dismissed the battle as “more personal pettiness than policy.”
Still, Padgett is confident his slate will leave Nashville victorious and that voters will elect him to a second term as national chair.
“If you look at the scorecard that you measure an administration on, we’re hitting records on every single metric,” Padgett said in an interview. “And so our pitch is, let’s double down on that. Let’s not pivot directions and return ourselves to some ill-conceived or vague task, let’s keep going forward in this upward momentum and see where that takes us.”
Even so, the race could be a harbinger for further GOP infighting. While Trump is still a kingmaker in conservative politics, operatives and candidates are already positioning themselves to try to shape the party in 2028 and beyond — where another wide-open, messy primary could break out over who gets to inherit the MAGA mantle.
“I think Republicans need to make sure that we are in lockstep and that there’s no infighting when it comes to 2028,” said Assenmacher, the California chair. “Trump is not going to be the candidate there, so we’re going to need to unite behind somebody, and it’s going to take the youth behind them to support that.”
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