EXCLUSIVE: There’s A New America First Org On The Block, And It Wants To Make GOP Less Dusty

A new Republican group plans to recruit America First candidates who resonate with young voters to replace old-guard GOP lawmakers, the group’s leaders told the Daily Caller News Foundation Monday.

American Ascent, a 501 (c)(4) that launched Monday, aims to eliminate geriatric leadership by recruiting, training and backing America First conservative candidates to replace older incumbents in 2028 and defend the American way of life. American Ascent President Ryan Neuhaus told the DCNF that the organization intends to back anti-war candidates who put the U.S. before foreign interests, noting that young people are struggling with the cost of living and with affording their own homes in comparison to Baby Boomers and Generation X.

“The decision to go to war with Iran was political malpractice,” Neuhaus told the DCNF. “I think that for too long, we’ve had our sights set on foreign adventurism and we’ve really neglected to take into account the needs of the domestic populace. And really, what the American people are telling us [is] they want a restoration of the American dream, a stabilization of the economy, hope for the future, the ability to have children, a place they can send their kids to school where they feel safe and protected and actually learn something valuable that they can translate into a career later. I think young people are tired of seeing us make promises and then not keep them, and not going back to the Middle East and engaging in endless wars is a promise that was broken, and the American people responded, particularly young people.”

The organization will “scout out those who have the potential to lead” and enroll them in a leadership training program called the “Fellowship for American Ascent,” according to Politico. Neuhaus said American Ascent will build relationships between voters and candidates who are “young, capable and competent.”

The organization intends to recruit candidates who want to defend and preserve the American way of life, according to its website.

“Our inheritance does not belong to the elites who wish to destroy it. Everything good in America’s history, everything that continues to make our country great today, and every chance we have to secure an even greater future, flows from the American way of life. Therefore, we believe that American statesmen owe it the utmost allegiance, over party, over personality, and over any other private interest. Our fight, then, is to defeat the forces arrayed against it.”

Young men voted for Democrats by a 17-point margin after supporting Trump in 2024. A Harvard Youth Poll found that young voters expected to be worse off financially than their parents for the first time in the poll’s history. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said they would be worse off, while 25% expected to be better off.

Democrats replaced several incumbents past retirement age with younger candidates in the primaries, while old-guard Republican incumbents won their primaries or held onto their seats.

Neuhaus said the old-guard incumbents ignore the concerns of young Americans while passing legislation that hurts them.