Although US President Donald Trump is not a candidate in the midterm elections scheduled for November 3; However, his party is once again putting him at the heart of a major party conference two months before the elections. Republicans are meeting on Wednesday and Thursday (September 9 and 10) at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, which has a capacity of about 20,000 people, to attend the “Republican Midterm Conference.”
Such large caucuses in the USA are usually held only before the presidential elections. Democrats experimented with holding similar conventions in the 1970s and 1980s, but this form of convention is considered the first of its kind for Republicans. At this conference, Republicans are seeking to mobilize Trump supporters in Texas to support Republican Party candidates.
How influential is Trump in the election campaign?
Republicans enter this campaign with a president who is widely unpopular. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Donald Trump's approval rating was just 33 percent. In addition, the Democrats have now managed to garner much more supporters. Nearly half of their supporters said they were very excited about the midterm elections, while this number was only 31 percent among Republicans.
Yet the Republican caucus is entirely designed for Trump. President Trump is scheduled to appear twice during the convention on Wednesday and Thursday evening, making him more prominent than the Republican Party candidates running for the Senate and House of Representatives in November. However, proximity to Trump in particular poses a risk for some of these candidates. In a poll of more than 70 Republican candidates and representatives, the Politico news magazine noted significant hesitation toward the conference.
It appears that many Republican candidates in disputed electoral districts have become afraid of close association with the president. And since some Republican candidates even want to stay away from their party's convention entirely, it shows Trump's dilemma. On the one hand, Trump is supposed to mobilize supporters in the MAGA base, and on the other hand, his strong presence could intimidate moderate voters and enable his political opponents to mobilize more supporters.
Evaluation or attack on Democrats?
Although the president's popularity is currently declining in opinion polls, the Republican Party convention platform is initially betting on a positive assessment of his presidency so far. Topics such as the economy, border security, trade and public safety are supposed to show what Trump has already achieved from a Republican perspective.
With the main themes of the Republican conference such as “Two Visions for America” and “Comparing the Opposition,” the conference is also organized to be an attack on the Democrats, whom Republicans describe as a party dominated by the political left and say that the presence of a majority of Democrats in Congress poses a threat to Trump’s current policies. This could actually derail his political agenda in the next two years, and give Congress much broader powers to monitor and investigate the government.
Does Trump have an answer to the rising cost of living?
Evaluating Trump's achievements becomes especially difficult on the subject of the economy. The GOP convention platform is centered specifically around what Trump has achieved so far: his tax cuts, lower drug prices and support for domestic production.
Until now, it remains unknown whether he will be able to present something fundamentally new at the Dallas conference. Political scientist Sascha Lohmann of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) finds this unlikely. Because Trump's speeches in such election campaigns are usually not well-organized and rarely linked to concrete policy actions, says Lohmann, who adds: "We see in his speeches a kind of 'flow of ideas.'" Lohman explains that over time, Trump tends to reveal what “might be on his mind at that moment.”
Trump's problem is that his economic success story does not agree with the opinion of many Americans. In a recent poll conducted by the Financial Times in cooperation with Focal Data, about two-thirds of people polled said that the American economy is heading in the wrong direction. And 57 percent of them even said that their financial situation had deteriorated since Trump took office.
What does Trump do with the Iran war?
Perhaps the most notable element of the conference program is that it does not address the Iran war. Among the 109 items and speakers on the agenda, the conference includes a section marking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, in addition to economic topics, but there is no similar focus on the current war against Iran.
It seems that the conference administration wants to downplay this politically sensitive issue as much as possible. But Trump himself has so far taken a different path and continues to portray the war as a victory. Expert Lohmann expects Trump to adhere to this position in Dallas as well. Trump's argument is that he "has weakened Iran to a degree that no president before him has ever achieved, that he has eliminated its nuclear program, and that the Iranians are now begging for an end to the conflict."
Will Dallas become the scene of Trump's succession?
The Dallas Republican Convention is officially focused on the midterm elections, but after the midterm elections, attention turns to the upcoming presidential elections. While Trump's Vice President, J.D. Vance, had a prominent role in the conference, the name of his most prominent competitor within the Republican Party, Marco Rubio, has not yet been included on the list of speakers.
It is certain that Trump will not nominate J.D. Vance as his successor at the Dallas conference, but his vice president will get the opportunity to introduce himself to the MAGA audience as a potential successor to the movement. Concerning this, expert Lohmann from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs says: “It is likely that the focus at the Dallas conference will be on the vice president, because Vance has not yet had to bear very little political responsibility for the Iran war.”
Prepared in Arabic by: Raed Al-Bash / Edited by: Salah Sharara
