Conservatives from across Minnesota flocked to Rollie’s in Sauk Rapids last Saturday for the chance to listen to activist Scott Presler lead a grassroots workshop and training session. The event, hosted by the Benton County GOP, was aimed at getting Republicans to look past the 2022 election and reorganize in time for better results in 2024.

Presler, whose Twitter account #ThePersistence boasts 1.4 million followers, spoke at length about the changes he believes can lead to greater electoral success in the future.

The self-described “long-haired Eagle Scout, son of a retired Navy Captain” first came to internet fame for a tweet encouraging people to pick up trash in Baltimore, MD.

The message went viral and people from all political persuasions came together to pick up tons of trash from the streets. The success of the effort proved a point for Presler.

“We don’t need government to solve our problems,” he told the crowd.  “We as a community can do it ourselves.”

Presler pointed to his website, EarlyVoteAction.com, as a place where people can find information that he believes will be vital to the conservative movement in the coming months.

“We cannot wait until November of 2024,” Presler exhorted the crowd. “We need an all of the above approach to voting.”

Touting approaches such as voter registration and education, as well as outreach to Muslim, Somali and Jewish communities, Presler challenged some tenants of conventional conservative thinking and encouraged people to think differently about their future approaches to campaigning. He said he doesn’t charge to do these trainings across the country because he believes it is vitally important that conservatives coalesce around a unified and winning message.

He touted the successes of Florida, which in a little over a decade went from a Democratic registration majority to a plus 500,000 person advantage for registered Republicans. He focused on reaching Independent minded voters as a formula for success and encouraged attendees to focus on issues more than ideologies.

On the topic of ballots and election integrity, he offered a straight forward philosophy.

“I want every legal vote to count,” Presler told the crowd. “I don’t want a single voter to be disenfranchised.”

He pointed to examples from the last election where snowstorms interrupted people’s plans to vote on Election Day and other cases where precincts across the nation ran out of paper ballots. For these reasons and others, he surmised, voting early in-person or using mail-in ballots makes sense for conservatives.

“Democrats vote for weeks and Republicans vote for 12 hours and we wonder why it’s difficult for us,” Presler told the crowd.

He even used a Minnesota example, as MN Representative Roger Skraba won his last election by just 15 votes in the Northeastern part of the state. In the expansive district, approximately one-third of voters did so by mail and without those votes, Skraba would certainly have lost the election.

He next lamented the number of registered Republicans who sat out the 2022 election and stressed the need to get those people to the polls.

“We have the votes, but the Democrats are better at galvanizing their voters,” Presler asserted.

“I’m asking all of you to get out of your comfort zone and do something you wouldn’t normally do.”

With his presentation completed, Presler spent some time answering questions from the audience and posing for many pictures with the attendees. 

As the attendees filed out, Blake Paulson, Chair of the Benton County GOP, voiced his pleasure with the training and the message that Presler conveyed.

“It was great to see so many motivated, grassroots people from across the state get together on a Saturday afternoon to hear a forward-focused and positive message that left each person feeling hopeful and with action items to implement in their communities,” Paulson said.