Two nights before Thanksgiving last year, President Donald Trump called House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) to say, “Mike, we’ve got to do a midterm convention,” the speaker recounted at a campaign event last month, faintly impersonating the president.
“That’s not a thing,” Johnson recalled replying. Trump responded: “Make it a thing.”
The thing comes into being on Wednesday in Dallas, where the Republican Party will throw a two-day, Trump-centered pep rally to kick off the peak campaign season. The whole affair is being staged at Trump’s instigation and to his specifications, the latest expression of a party he remade to revolve around him.
“Trumpapalooza,” as the Republican National Committee chairman calls it, will put the party’s chief communicator and his administration’s record at the center of the party’s case as he fights an unpopular war, presides over an uneven economy and faces historical headwinds to preserving a GOP majority.
Originally expected as the event’s grand finale, Trump is now scheduled to headline the first night and speak again on Thursday. An official involved in the planning said Trump wanted to “set the tone.” Vice President JD Vance will anchor the second night, burnishing his image as the heir apparent. The other most buzzed-about potential successor, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is not scheduled to speak.
Democrats, the president and his advisers reasoned, would try to turn the midterms into a referendum on Trump with or without his help. That calculation also informed Trump’s direction to air ads about himself, leading an allied nonprofit group to spend $1 million on nationwide commercials featuring his face and voice.
Trump has told his supporters to vote as though he were on the ballot, and party strategists recognize they need him to deliver base voters who might otherwise sit out a nonpresidential election. But the strategy carries a risk. Trump’s approval rating is mired in the mid-30s, at or near historic lows for a president facing a midterm election. In an August Reuters/Ipsos poll, just 20 percent of independents approved of his performance, complicating efforts by Republicans to broaden their appeal.
Candidates are showing their ambivalence with their feet. Three candidates in Senate battlegrounds — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, and former senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire — are staying home. Others more tightly aligned with Trump, such as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, former RNC chair Michael Whatley of North Carolina, Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, and former congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan, are scheduled to speak.
The lineup also includes candidates in tight races: Sen. John Husted of Ohio, Reps. Rob Bresnahan and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, Jay Feely of Arizona, Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, and Mike Bouchard of Michigan. The speakers also include GOP pickup hopefuls: Mike LiPetri in New York, Tano Tijerina in Texas, Marty O’Donnell in Nevada, Derek Merrin in Ohio, Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina, and Greg Cunningham in New Mexico.
“Everybody wants to be there, but we’re really asking only those Candidates that are in tight Races, a little up, a little down, or even, to speak. We want to save the ‘stage’ for them,” Trump said Tuesday on social media.
Democrats promptly attacked Van Orden for his appearance, portraying it as siding with Trump and party bosses over home-state voters. “Van Orden’s actions show where his priorities lie, and it’s not with Wisconsinites,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Katie Smith said in a statement.
National Democrats including Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, widely viewed as a potential presidential candidate, and Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania and Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California are also traveling to Dallas to counter-program the GOP. Paxton’s opponent, state Rep. James Talarico, is planning a statewide food drive to draw attention to grocery prices.
“Republican candidates are on defense, running away from Trump because they know Trump is historically unpopular and that voter enthusiasm is surging in favor of Democrats,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a memo released on Tuesday. “This convention will be a stark reminder of how out of touch Republicans remain from the everyday realities of the American people.”
The GOP gathering is an experiment without modern precedent. In presidential years, party nominating conventions function as prime-time telethons that typically deliver a polling bounce. This week, the major broadcast networks had not committed as of Tuesday to carrying it live. The convention coincides with the opening games of the NFL season.
The party changed its rules to accommodate Trump’s interest in a midterm conference, which it has never held. Democrats held midterm conventions in 1974, 1978 and 1982 before deciding they were too expensive and prone to showcasing infighting and jockeying for the next presidential nomination.
Republicans entered this cycle knowing they faced an uphill fight since the president’s party usually loses in midterms. Trump responded by urging GOP-led states to redraw congressional maps to take away Democratic-held seats and narrow the House battlefield to a couple dozen districts. That, they hoped, would make a Democratic wave on a scale of the party’s 40-seat gain in 2018 more difficult.
Texas, the convention’s host state, reflects both sides of the party’s gamble. The redistricting push started there, but some of the state’s redrawn districts now appear more competitive than Republicans anticipated. One of them belongs to Rep. Monica De La Cruz, whom Johnson was campaigning with when he recounted Trump’s instruction to make the convention a reality.
She faces a serious challenge in her South Texas district, which Trump carried by 18 points in 2024, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Paxton has trailed Talarico in most polls and in fundraising — $1.8 million on hand as of June 30 to the Democrat’s $21.5 million — reinvigorating long-deferred Democratic dreams of turning the state blue.
Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., disclosed its first significant spending in the midterms on Saturday with a $10 million ad buy to support Paxton, whom Trump backed over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Paxton has not received any support from the main Senate super PAC, which spent against him in the primary.
The program focuses heavily on testimonials from “everyday Americans” describing how Trump’s policies have benefited them. Only six out of the 47 named speakers on the schedule are women.
Trump plans to follow the convention with a trip to Ireland to visit his golf course this weekend. He has said he will campaign more frequently in October, with events as often as every day.
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