I have a confession, one I’m not necessarily proud of, and it’s this: I’m a little worried that Trump’s offer to pay $5,000 to every American adult if the Republicans somehow take the midterms is going to make a sufficient difference to enough indigent souls that it may tip some Senate races their way.
This makes no logical sense, I know. Of course, there’s not a single chance in hell he could actually make the payments happen, nor does he actually plan to. But this is the country that elected this swindling scumbag as president twice, so nothing should be seen as out of the realm.
Let’s remember that a not-insubstantial percentage of the population still believes what he says despite all evidence pointing to the fact he’s never told the truth even once in his adult life. He’s also promised previous cash payments that never materialized: a $5,000 DOGE dividend in 2025, as well as a $2,000 tariff payment.
Evidently, a $90 rebate to Medicare enrollees has actually gone through, though not to me yet. I was hoping against hope that it wouldn’t hit my bank account electronically but might be mailed out as a check, so I could post a video of myself using it as toilet paper.
Alas, it’s destined to be a dream unfulfilled.
But honestly, how hard up for cash do you have to be to receive 90 bucks and think, “Wow, that Trump, maybe I’ve seen him all wrong. He’s keeping my car gassed up for a few days. I think I now need to vote for whomever he tells me to in November.”
It’s more likely that people will be offended that he thinks they can be bought off so cheaply. But can the most corrupt human being this country has ever produced really purchase an election for $5,000 per capita?
I’d like to think we’re better than that. But I’m not sure we are.
There are, however, some encouraging signs.
A Verasight Data Library survey of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted between September 16 and 21 asked the simple question: would the $5,000 promise make you more or less likely to vote Republican?
The results:
Less likely: 32.6%
More likely: 15.3%
No difference: 52.1%
That’s a fairly striking result. Roughly twice as many respondents said the promise would make them less likely to vote Republican, clearly offended by the notion that their support could be so easily purchased. And more than half think it’s irrelevant.
Another obstacle if you’re Trump comes from the Economist/YouGov survey that found just 21% of registered voters believe Trump would probably or definitely deliver the $5,000 bribe if Republicans retained Congress, while 57% believed he wouldn’t and 22% didn’t know what to believe.
My take is again that he has no intention of having the government send out anything, no matter what happens in the election. And even if he wanted to, there are substantial doubts he could jump through enough financial hoops to bring it to fruition.
Start with the math, which by itself is insane.
A $5,000 payoff to every American citizen aged 18-plus estimates 249.75 million people, and a price tag of a staggering $1.249 trillion. Let me remind you here that a trillion is a thousand billion. That’s more money than the federal government spends annually on either Medicare or national defense. The promise is to everyone regardless of how they voted.
In a perfect world, we’d all love to snare an extra $5K. But this world, and certainly this country, is far from perfect. Here is what I see standing in the way:
- Trump can’t legally authorize the payments himself. The Constitution, that thing he ignores every change he gets, gives Congress control over federal spending. The president has suggested he doesn’t need congressional approval, but he says a lot of things, as we all know, and this one ain’t true.
- He says that tariff revenues would finance the payments. FactCheck.org found that tariff revenues would take more than six years to cover the more than $12 trillion cost, even before accounting for refunds of tariffs invalidated by the Supreme Court.
- There’s a potentially serious legal question. Trump has explicitly conditioned the $5,000 payments on Republicans winning both chambers of Congress. This raises potential federal vote-buying charges.
- No matter what happens in the midterms, he will declare that things didn’t go down the way he’d hoped and the “radical left” Democrats are holding him back from implementing the $5K plan. He’ll blame Biden, and Obama, and the Deep State, and Nancy Pelosi, and George Soros, and Hunter Biden’s laptop, and windmills, and Hillary Clinton of course, and Taylor Swift…and finally the checks themselves.
Of course, the Republicans hopefully aren’t winning anything in November, making the point moot. But if Trump really had any intention of making good on this, why hasn’t he submitted a detailed proposal to Congress?
We all know why.
Meanwhile, here is a piece of historical irony to chew on: In 1972, Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern proposed a $1,000 annual payment to every American. Republicans attacked it as an irresponsible giveaway, and McGovern eventually dropped the proposal. The idea became a political liability.
There is nothing out there right now in 2026 to indicate anyone is basing their midterm vote on this happening. In fact, the opposite seems to be playing out.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey released on Thursday indicated that 48% of those who voted for Kamala Harris for president in 2024 are “very enthusiastic” about voting in the upcoming election, compared to only 30% of Trump 2024 voters. And among those enthusiastic Harris supporters, 62% said they were motivated by opposition to Trump.
In other words, there is a “Take your $5,000 and shove it!” vibe out there now. Rescuing a democracy under assault appears to outflank even financial worries. And it’s about damn time.
(Ray Richmond is a longtime journalist/author and an adjunct professor at Chapman University in Orange, CA.)
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