Conservative group FreedomWorks shutting down, citing Trump effect

The conservative group FreedomWorks said it is shutting down, citing the splintering effect former President Trump has had on the Republican Party.

“We’re dissolved,” the group’s president, Adam Brandon, told Politico in an interview. “It’s effective immediately.”

The Hill has reached out to FreedomWorks, but Politico reported the company’s board of directors voted unanimously Tuesday to shut down the organization.

Wednesday will be the roughly 25 employees’ last day, but staff members will receive paychecks and benefits for a couple of months.  

The conservative advocacy group laid off 40 percent of its staff in March 2023, and its total revenue dropped by roughly half since 2022, Brandon told Politico.

He said the decision to dissolve the company was driven by the ideological changes driven by Trump’s time in office. After Trump won, a “huge gap” opened between the company’s libertarian principles and the MAGA ideologies of its members, he said.

“A lot of our base aged, and so the new activists that have come in [with] Trump, they tend to be much more populist,” Brandon said. “So, you look at the base and that just kind of shifted.”

He said FreedomWorks staff became divided into MAGA Trump supporters and “Never Trump” Republicans. Brandon said the organization saw “an erosion of conservative donors” because they specifically wanted the group to work for Trump, when the organization would only support Trump if it was on topics they agree with.

He said it was “an impossible situation” as some donors would say he wasn’t doing enough to support Trump and others would say he was doing too much. Brandon, who has been with FreedomWorks since 2005 and has acted as president for about 10 years, told the outlet he plans to create a new organization that is focused on politically independent millennials and Gen Z members.