In the midterm elections to Congress, which will take place on November 3, the name of U.S. President Donald Trump will not be included on any ballot. Nevertheless, on September 9 and 10, at the Republican Party (GOP) convention in Dallas, he will once again be at the center of attention.
Usually large party conventions in the United States are held only before presidential elections. To hold one in the middle of the election cycle was suggested by Trump himself. The Democratic Party experimented with similar formats in the 1970s and early 1980s; for Republicans, this is new.
In essence, at the roughly 20,000-seat Dallas American Airlines Center, a major two-day election rally will be held with the goal of showcasing party unity and mobilizing Trump supporters in support of the Republican Party candidates.
Isn’t there too much Trump in this election campaign?
Republicans are entering the current election campaign with an unpopular leader. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Donald Trump’s job approval as president is only 33% among Americans. Moreover, the Democratic electorate is currently much more mobilized: almost half of their supporters say they are looking forward to the midterm elections with particular enthusiasm, whereas among respondents who support Republicans, the figure is only 31%.
Nevertheless, the Dallas convention scenario is fully built around Trump. He will speak in the evening on each of the two days of the event, placing him at the center of attention to a greater extent than the party candidates running for the Senate and the House of Representatives. For some of them, such closeness to the White House resident is rather risky. After surveying more than 70 Republican candidates, the publication Politico found a noticeable reluctance on their part toward the convention.
It seems that many candidates in constituencies with fiercely competitive races fear being too closely associated with the president. The fact that some of them are absent from the party congress illustrates the dilemma facing Trump. On the one hand, he needs above all to mobilize supporters of the MAGA movement; on the other hand, the active presence of the president could both put off moderate voters and further mobilize his political opponents.
Summing up the first results of Trump’s rule or an attack on the Democrats?
Despite the president’s current low approval ratings, the convention’s platform is initially focused on a positive assessment of his tenure. Topics such as the economy, border security, international trade, and public safety should demonstrate Trump’s achievements from the Republicans’ point of view.
And some discussion panels—for example, "Two Visions of America" and "Bright Differences from the Opposition"—are designed to use the convention simultaneously as a platform to criticize the Democrats. Republicans portray the Democratic Party as a structure dominated by left-wing political forces, and a possible Democratic majority in Congress as a threat to current Trump policies.
Indeed, a Democratic victory in the midterm elections could block the implementation of his program over the following two years and give Congress significantly more opportunities to oversee the actions of the Trump administration and carry out various kinds of investigations.
Can Trump reduce the cost of living in the United States?
It’s especially difficult to talk about Donald Trump’s successes when the question concerns the state of the economy. In the convention’s program documents, the emphasis is primarily on what Trump has already done: lowering taxes and drug prices, as well as supporting domestic producers.
Only time will tell whether the Dallas convention can offer something substantially new in this regard. Political scientist Sasha Loman (Sascha Lohmann) from the Berlin think tank "Science and Politics" (SWP) believes this is unlikely. In his view, at such campaign events, Trump’s speeches are usually unstructured and rarely tied to specific policy measures. "We’re seeing something close to a stream of consciousness," Loman explains. In his long speech, Trump is more likely to say something like what he "may have on his mind at the moment".
The problem for Trump, according to observers, is that his story of economic success does not match what many Americans think. In a recent FT/Focaldata poll, almost two-thirds of respondents said the U.S. economy is moving in the wrong direction. And 57% reported that their personal financial situation has worsened since Trump took office.
Will the U.S. war against Iran be ignored at the convention?
Perhaps the most striking thing about the future convention is the near complete absence of any mention of the U.S. war against Iran in the preliminary agenda. In a document that includes 109 items and speakers, besides economic topics there is a section devoted to the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks—but there is no comparable attention paid to the current war in the Persian Gulf.
The organizers of the convention, it seems, intend to play down the significance of this politically highly sensitive issue. The president himself, however, takes a different line, continuing to present this war as his next success. Sasha Loman from SWP expects the White House resident to stick to this position in Dallas as well.
Trump’s main argument, as Loman puts it, boils down to the following: "Iran is weakened to the extent that no American president has ever managed, its nuclear program has been eliminated, and the Iranians are now practically pleading for an end to the conflict."
Will they announce Vance at the convention as Trump’s successor?
Officially, the Dallas convention is devoted to the upcoming midterm elections, but after those elections, all attention shifts to the next presidential election. Vice President JD Vance is set to play a prominent role at the convention, while his potentially biggest rival in the Republican Party, Marco Rubio, is not even on the list of speakers so far.
It’s unlikely Trump in Dallas will name Vance as his successor, but the vice president will get the chance to present himself to a MAGA audience as a possible heir and future leader of this movement. That the convention will be focused to a significant degree on the vice president as a figure seems likely not least because, until now, Vance has had to shoulder very little political responsibility for the war with Iran, SWP expert concluded.
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