It was a revealing comment from Donald Trump.
“I’m not affected by the election,” the president said last week to reporters in the Oval Office. “Number one, I’m not running.”
He followed that statement with a demurral that “my party’s running, and I’m going to help my party.”
And then another switchback. Trump said that his higher priority is the war he launched with Iran more than six months ago.
Trump promised it would end quickly, but there is no end in sight.
The conflict is aimed at, among other things, preventing Tehran from having a nuclear weapon. But it is inflicting the collateral damage of higher gasoline prices that are stressing and infuriating voters at home.
This is the awkwardness that will undergird the unconventional convention that Republicans will launch Wednesday in Dallas.
The gathering, which was Trump’s idea, has the declared purpose of unifying and rallying the Republican base ahead of an election in which the party is expected to lose the House and possibly the Senate. But it is fair to wonder how deeply — based on Trump’s own public comments and actions — he feels invested in the fate of others in his party.
The GOP’s first-ever midterm convention is being billed as a “Trumpaganza.” With the president speaking both nights, it will be a celebration of All Things Trump, even as his approval rating has sunk into the high 30s in some polls.
Midterm elections are nearly always referendum on the president and party in power. Gambits such as Trump’s deportation roundups and his trade war with Canada have further pushed Republican Senate candidates in battleground areas on the defensive.
Which has made even the question of whether to show up at the Dallas convention a fraught one for Republican contenders in key Senate races and the four dozen or so House districts that are thought to be in play. It is a small number, in historical terms, thanks to political polarization and aggressive gerrymandering.
On the one hand for Republicans who are on the ballot, making themselves more closely associated with an unpopular president is risky; on the other, they do not want to incur the Trump’s wrath or do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the party base.
So some of those candidates have indicated that they have made previous commitments this week that cannot be broken. Others have simply avoided reporters inquiring as to whether they will attend.
Congressional leaders, who have less wiggle room, will be in Dallas and are doing their best to put on a hopeful face about how all of this is going to turn out.
“The president’s going to look right in the camera and say, ‘I am on the ballot,’” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has predicted. “Because even though his name isn’t, right, his administration, his legacy, the America First agenda is.”
The convention’s formal agenda includes a meaty set of issues — among them, tax cuts; waste and fraud reduction; health care costs; border enforcement; trade; and crime.
But Trump rarely sticks to a script. He relishes holding forth on the grandiose construction projects he has initiated around Washington, from his White House ballroom to his triumphal arch to the renovation of the National Mall’s reflecting pool. But his effect tends to flatten when he speaks about the cost-of-living issues that voters say are at the top of their concerns.
That may be why a new ad featuring a testimonial by the president on housing costs carries this note: “The audio of President Trump is AI generated and used with permission.”
Where Trump excels is in branding his opponents. So expect to hear attacks on Democrats as weak, woke and communists.
For those Republicans looking for a golden lining to their cloudy predicament, Trump has finally done at least one thing that anxious Republicans are celebrating. His massive fundraising operation, which he claims has nearly $1 billion available, has finally loosened its fist and begun to spend as promised.
On Saturday, MAGA Inc. filed a report with the Federal Election Commission saying it will invest $10 million on advertising to benefit Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee, against his Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, who has been gaining in the polls.
Then again, Trump’s endorsement of Paxton in the March Texas primary is a significant reason the money is needed. Had incumbent Sen. John Cornyn prevailed, he would been favored to win reelection easily in November.
On his social media platform Truth Social, Trump is promising the convention will be “a Rally like never before — Incredible!” Which is likely to be true. The question is whether that is a prospect Republicans should be welcoming or dreading.
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