At a bar called dEcORa in Covington, Kentucky, more than a dozen young Republicans gathered on a recent evening and described a deepening sense of buyer’s remorse with the president they helped elect in 2024. Their conversation, which stretched over beers and brightly colored cocktails beneath the bar’s spray-painted concrete pillars, revealed a generational fracture inside the GOP as the party edges toward a post-Trump future.
Nathaniel Showalter, a 34-year-old who voted for Trump, said he now finds himself counting the days until the president leaves office. “I absolutely do not regret voting for Trump in 2024,” Showalter said. “I can’t wait for him to get out of office.”
That sentiment echoed around the room. Logan Edge, 26, said Trump has allowed the Republican establishment he once vowed to dismantle to swallow him. “The Republican Party has a way of consuming their candidates,” Edge said. “Whether you’re a Trump, a Mike Pence, a Marco Rubio — it doesn’t matter. The party will swallow you.” He still plans to vote Republican but no longer feels any personal loyalty to Trump.
Several of the young voters singled out the U.S.-led war against Iran as the moment their disillusionment crystallized. Elijah Drysdale, 27, who served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, described the conflict as a betrayal of Trump’s anti-war promises. “That was the last straw,” Drysdale said. Henry Hecht, a 27-year-old who had been a vocal Trump supporter, said he was drawn to Trump’s 2016 slogan calling for an end to endless wars. “He got elected and it’s like he just forgot about that,” Hecht said.
The group also expressed anger over Trump’s decision to endorse former state Attorney General Daniel Cameron over Rep. Thomas Massie in Kentucky’s Senate primary. Massie, a libertarian-leaning conservative popular with younger voters, lost the primary on May 20. John Wardrop, 33, said Trump’s intervention cost him a supporter. “The way he did Massie, the way he did Gaetz, the way he did Bob Good — it’s a pattern,” Wardrop said. “He’s getting rid of the people who actually have principles.”
Michael Gartman, 34, said he wishes Vice President JD Vance, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and conservative activist Charlie Kirk were not tethered to the Trump White House because he believes their ideas could outlast Trump’s brand. “Trump has done a lot of good for the conservative movement,” Gartman said. “But I have no idea who’s going to replace him.”
The frustration inside dEcORa contrasted with the views of older Republicans in the area. Ed Gallrein, a 72-year-old retired insurance salesman and former county GOP chair, said he remains “highly” supportive of Trump. “I don’t have the same concerns that some of our younger members have,” Gallrein said. He expressed hope that the next Republican presidential nominee would be Vance or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis but was not ready to move on from Trump.
Andrew Cooperrider, 37, who also voted for Trump, said he doubts the GOP can win again without the president’s coalition but worries the party is not building a bench. “He’s made the Republican Party into what he wants,” Cooperrider said. “But when that’s gone, what do you have?”
The Covington conversation unfolded against a backdrop of broader signs of eroding support for Trump among young and Hispanic voters, as polls have shown. The young Republicans in the room made clear they are not leaving the party. But their patience with its current leader has worn thin, and the search for what comes next has already begun.