U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that he is planning to hold a midterm convention. Though the details remain vague, the president is hoping to promote himself and his accomplishments in an effort to boost turnout in 2026. He wants to improve the odds for the Republican Party to maintain its slim majority in the House of Representatives. “I am thinking of recommending a National Convention to the Republican Party,” he wrote on Truth Social, “just prior to the Midterms. It has never been done before. STAY TUNED!!”
Midterms have historically favored the opposition party since the most enthusiastic voters tend to be those who are angriest with the incumbent. A convention would theoretically help Trump whip up enthusiasm among his base, particularly with disengaged voters who supported him in 2024 but are less likely to come out in a midterm.
Democrats have also been giving strong consideration to a midterm convention. Their hope would be to garner media attention that would help them to nationalize the elections around opposition to the president, hammering away at MAGA Republicans for being plutocratic, autocratic, and disinterested in the daily challenges of working Americans. Given the terrible polls that Democrats are contending with, a well-orchestrated gathering could offer the party an opportunity to reintroduce themselves to voters after the fallout from former President Joe Biden’s rough end.
To understand how these midterm conventions could unfold, the 1970s provide a window during which Democrats already experimented with this idea. As Steve Benen wrote for MSBNC, “While the president told the public that this has ‘never been done before,’ he was wrong. In fact, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) held midterm conventions in the 1970s and ’80s, before giving up on the practice ahead of the 1986 cycle.”
The Democratic conventions of 1974 and 1978—officially called the Conference on Democratic Policy and Organization—emerged from a crisis of confidence similar to today. In the wake of the Vietnam War and Watergate, younger party reformers such as Rep. Don Fraser from Minnesota insisted that a high-profile gathering would reconnect the party with disillusioned voters and showcase a new generation of leadership. Most important, the midterm gatherings could unify the different factions of the party that were too often fighting with each other around principle, issues, and ideas.
Yet the midterm conventions of the 1970s turned out to be largely forgettable. Internal divisions, vague messaging, and the absence of a compelling strategy to counteract the burgeoning conservative movement left these meetings feeling more like shallow symbolic gestures rather than a foundation for electoral success.
Would the outcome be the same in 2026?
The midterm conventions of the 1970s were part of an era of political reform in the United States. Following the tumultuous party convention in Chicago in 1968, when anti-Vietnam protesters clashed with police outside the convention with the world watching on television, Democratic leaders concluded that their party needed to change.
Younger members had grown frustrated with older Southern conservatives who, in an uneasy alliance with entrenched urban machine Democrats, resisted reforms and ignored a growing party majority demanding a more open, accountable, diverse, and democratic organization. The new generation of Democrats also wanted leadership that more enthusiastically embraced issues such as feminism, environmentalism, pacifism, and social justice.
After Republican candidate Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968, shattering Democrats’ confidence that the nation would continue to move in a more liberal direction, the party had undertaken a number of internal reforms aimed at building strength and ideological coherence. Their enthusiasm about reform only grew stronger when Nixon won a landslide victory against Sen. George McGovern—and then the Watergate scandal shattered trust in all elected officials.
Having the party meet in a nonpresidential election year emerged as one idea for rebuilding the Democrats. The purpose of the midterm convention was to give the party a chance to craft an ambitious, issue-driven platform capable of uniting its increasingly fractious membership. As historian Sam Rosenfeld recounts in The Polarizers, younger reformers within the Democratic Party demanded a structure that prioritized issues rather than patronage.
Political scientist James MacGregor Burns envisioned a similarly vigorous party, one that “would welcome and recruit members on the basis of one test and one test alone—belief in the principles and goals of the party as defined in the national platform.” He added that “those who do not share its goals would see no point in joining it, or staying in it.”
The DNC originally scheduled the Conference on Democratic Policy and Organization for the summer of 1974. But Chairman Robert Strauss—who, as biographer Kathryn J. McGarr noted in The Whole Damn Deal, never supported the midterm convention idea—postponed the gathering until December. The internal strife was so intense that Strauss feared it could damage Democrats in the upcoming elections. In addition, the dramatic conclusion of Nixon’s presidency, capped by his August resignation, made a later date appear like to be the wiser choice.
The elections only increased the sense of urgency of finding common ground among Democrats before the next presidential race. In the wake of Watergate, voters sent to Washington a large influx of Democratic newcomers, dubbed the “Watergate Babies,” who were determined to shake up the political system. Most of the first-term lawmakers refused to defer to party’s old guard and felt little attachment to the institution’s traditions, and they pushed for reforms to make politics more transparent, accountable, and efficient.
When Democrats met from Dec. 6-8 in Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium, nobody was quite sure what to expect. National Public Radio broadcast the deliberations. A number of presidential aspirants, including Washington Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson and former Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, spoke to the 2,035 delegates, using the summit as an opportunity to sell themselves for the 1976 election.
“No outstretched hand,” Jules Witcover reported in the Washington Post, “goes unshaken by a would be presidential nominee.”
The convention’s main accomplishment was approving a 3,500-word final charter, drafted by former North Carolina Gov. Terry Sanford, that emphasized more democratic and inclusive decision-making processes. Delegates also adopted a “Statement of Economic Policy” that reaffirmed the New Deal-style programs designed to protect and expand the middle class. One of the toughest fault lines emerged between Democratic leaders and organized labor, which sought recognition as one of the groups covered by the charter’s “affirmative action” provisions that aimed to ensure broad representation.
When the conference ended, Strauss praised what the Democrats had achieved and how they had done everything together. “We have institutionalized due process,” he said, “and we have done it together.”
Yet it soon became clear that the conference had failed in its primary goal: achieving principled unity.
Most damaging was the perception that Strauss worked harder to avoid harm than to produce anything bold; moreover, Strauss ensured that the charter would not take effect until 1980. Delegates also rejected a proposal to require a conference every two years. Supporters argued that such regular gatherings were essential for party leaders to articulate their principles, but opponents successfully warned that they would be too costly and invited needless controversy.
In 1975, Democratic infighting deepened. In January, first-term lawmakers in the House ousted several senior Southern committee chairs who opposed the priorities of the majority of the caucus. Carter’s 1976 presidential victory gave Democrats a unified government for the first time since 1968, but he struggled to keep the party aligned. Initiatives such as energy policy were watered down in the legislative process as Democrats fought among themselves. In 1978, Republicans gained 15 House seats and three Senate seats, strengthening the conservative coalition of right-leaning Democrats and Republicans.
In December 1978, 1,633 Democratic delegates gathered for the second midterm convention at the Cook Convention Center in Memphis, Tennessee. This meeting proved even less successful than the first. Carter’s defense of his anti-inflationary austerity plan, which would cut the federal budget, displeased many who wanted leaders to champion Democratic traditions rather than shift to the right.
“It is an illusion to believe we can preserve a commitment to compassionate, progressive government,” the president argued, “if we fail to bring inflation under control.”
The speech with the greatest impact came from Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, the youngest brother of the two slain leaders. He challenged the administration’s centrism and urged fellow Democrats to defend traditional liberal ideals to fight back against a growing conservative movement that sought to repudiate the legacies of former Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
“The party that tore itself apart over Vietnam in the 1960s,” Kennedy warned, “cannot afford to tear itself apart today over budget cuts in basic social programs.”
Other than Kennedy’s fiery blast against Carter, what ended up being most notable about Memphis was how many prominent Democrats didn’t attend. “Our turndown list reads like a Who’s Who of American politics,” DNC staffer Elaine Kamarck lamented to Time magazine.
Democrats remained deeply divided heading into the 1980 election. During the primaries, Kennedy challenged Carter. The midterm convention had been a launching pad for his candidacy. Carter survived the contest, but Kennedy’s attacks further weakened him, casting the president as so intent on rejecting old orthodoxies that he had abandoned core values.
At the Democratic National Convention that summer, delegates responded more enthusiastically to Kennedy’s speech than to Carter’s. Worst of all for Democrats, the two midterm conventions had done nothing to blunt the conservative movement. The decade ended with Ronald Reagan, the conservative movement’s leader, on his way to the Oval Office.
While Democrats would hold another midterm convention in Philadelphia in 1982, the practice would fade into historical obscurity.
The midterm conventions of the 1970s differed sharply from what is being considered today. In both in Kansas City and Memphis, Democrats met after the elections, aiming to craft a unifying message to bridge internal divisions rather than to boost turnout. By contrast, today’s proposed conventions would occur before voting, designed to energize voters by showcasing the parties’ leading figures while providing a high visibility platform to promote a national message. The differences within parties are much smaller in the current polarized age.
There is another reason that midterm conventions might prove more effective in 2026: The United States now operates an era where attention is the most valuable political commodity, rivaling money and turnout operations. As Chris Hayes argues in The Sirens’ Call, both parties struggle to capture and hold voter attention in a fast-moving, shifting, and fragmented media landscape. While such gatherings would not draw the ratings of presidential party conventions, they could still serve as a centralized event for Democrats and Republicans to reinforce campaign themes that motivate voters.
Given the razor-thin congressional majorities in both chambers, the goal is to persuade only small number of voters—or to motivate politically disengaged citizens—to choose one side or the other. A midterm convention, therefore, need not generate a sweeping electoral surge to be effective. In today’s era of intense polarization, influencing a far smaller slice of the electorate could be enough to turn majority control, unlike in the 1970s.
Although the midterm conventions of decades past were quickly dismissed as ineffective, even counterproductive, the current political environment makes such gatherings potentially far more powerful tools for advancing party interests on Election Day.
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