The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) hosted their inaugural Bellator Awards Gala on November 14 at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The gala boasted a variety of notable speakers and impressive awardees, all equally committed to bolstering the conservative movement in America—especially within the offices of Capitol Hill. CPI, along with their new initiative, the Conservative Partnership Academy (CPA), is confident that their institution will be on the front lines of defending conservative principles: Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania called CPI “the most consequential organization on the hill.”

Rebecca Dunn, a leading philanthropist who, along with her husband, Bill Dunn, helped launch CPA, addressed the crowd, asserting that “freedom will not be preserved without warriors”—one of the recurring nods to the gala’s name inspiration, “bellator,” which means “warrior” in Latin. She stressed how each person in the room has the ability to serve as a warrior for the conservative cause.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the gala’s keynote speaker, detailed his history with and passion for CPI and its goals. He praised the future generation of conservatives CPI has set out to find, saying:

As I look around at the conservative warriors in this room, the next generation is here. The next Mark Meadows is here, the next Scott Perry is here, the next Ed Corrigan is here, the next Mollie Hemingway is here…. We could not do what we do without being surrounded by principled warriors who love America.

The Bellator Awards Gala provided an environment in which conservative “warriors” could come together and begin planning for the future of the movement. A lot still remains to be seen: CPI’s vision of “Patriot Row,” a campus for conservative institutions, has yet to be fully realized, and the 2024 fellowship cycle has yet to begin. But if up-and-coming conservatives adhere to the mission of CPI and its benefactors, we may rightly look forward to the conservative movement of tomorrow.