Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – After months of latent pessimism about the midterm elections, traditionally difficult for the incumbent president's party, and fears about Republicans' ability to mobilize voters without Donald Trump's name on the ballot, the tycoon finally delivered a decidedly more optimistic message. "We will win the midterms and save America!" he wrote on Truth Social in his Labor Day greeting.
This shift in tone comes just days after Super Pac Maga Inc.'s first truly substantial spending spree of this campaign—$10 million in television and digital ads for the sensitive Senate race in Texas—and on the eve of the unprecedented Republican convention in Dallas, scheduled for today and tomorrow, designed by Trump himself to transform the November 3rd vote into a referendum on his presidency.
“Please pretend that it's me on the ballot,” he asked his supporters.
Always convinced that he was the main driving force behind the Republican electoral mobilization, less than two months before a vote that could cost the GOP control of Congress and heavily impact the final two years of his mandate, Trump has decided to replicate the spectacle of the presidential conventions in the midst of the midterm campaign.
In Dallas, however, there will be no candidates to nominate or a formal program to approve: the event at the American Airlines Center—the approximately 20-seat arena that hosts the Dallas Mavericks' NBA games—will be open to the public and promises to be a massive rally, with over 50 speeches or presentations per evening, entertainment, and a huge balloon shower at the closing. Trump, personally involved in the organization, will be the star of both days: he will deliver the keynote address on Wednesday and close the convention on Thursday, immediately after Vice President J.D. Vance. Organizers expect around 30 attendees overall for an event funded by Republican donors and costing over $40 million.
Some of the administration's top officials and party representatives will take the stage: in addition to Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Attorney General Todd Blanche, Donald Trump Jr., and former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt are expected to take the stage. Then, there will be a focus on the candidates engaged in the decisive battles for control of Congress, including Ken Paxton in Texas and Mike Rogers in Michigan, along with numerous House candidates. Not all of them, however, will be in Dallas: several Republicans running in the most competitive districts have preferred to remain campaigning in their own districts. Johnson himself acknowledged that, with the start of early voting now approaching, it's too sensitive a time for many lawmakers to leave the country.
The program will serve above all to bring attention to the issues that Trump considers the strengths of the first two years of his second term: the crackdown on immigration at the Mexican border, tax cuts, the revitalization of American manufacturing, tariffs and the reduction of drug prices, along with the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Ordinary citizens will also take the stage to speak about the benefits achieved by the administration's policies, while Republican candidates will attempt to counter their platform with the Democrats' "extreme positions." Thursday, the eve of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, will also feature a commemoration with the families of the rescuers, while Young Republicans will commemorate, one year later, the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Against this backdrop, the convention remains a high-stakes gamble. Trump arrives in Dallas with an approval rating stuck at 33%, according to Reuters/Ipsos, the lowest of his second term, after months marked by rising living costs and the war with Iran. Many Republican strategists therefore fear that turning the midterms into a personal referendum on the president could end up mobilizing Democrats at least as much as the MAGA base. This is the dilemma that will surround the entire event: in 2018, during Trump's first term, the Democrats won the House, and historically, the party that controls the White House tends to lose ground in midterm elections. The last president to see his party gain seats in both chambers was George W. Bush in 2002, in the first national elections after the September 11, 2001, attacks, amid an exceptional climate of national unity and strong consensus around the presidency. This time Trump wants to try to break the rule by placing himself, even without being a candidate, symbolically at the center of the ballot.
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