In the midterm elections on Nov. 3, US President Donald Trump will not be on the ballot. Nevertheless, his party is putting him at the center of a major convention two months before the election. On Wednesday and Thursday, Republicans are gathering at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, which can hold around 20,000 spectators, for the "Republican Midterm Convention."
In the United States, this sort of large party conventions are normally only held before presidential elections. Democrats experimented with similar gatherings in the 1970s and early 1980s, but for Republicans, the format is a first. In Texas, they want to mobilize Trump supporters for Republican candidates.
How much Trump is too much for the campaign?
Republicans are heading into the campaign with an unpopular president. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, Donald Trump had an approval rating of just 33%. On top of that, Democrats are currently much more energized. Nearly half of their supporters say they are especially enthusiastic about the midterm elections, compared with just 31% of Republicans.
Even so, the convention is entirely centered around Trump. The president will appear on both nights, putting him even more prominently in the spotlight than the Republican candidates who will actually be on the ballot for the Senate and House of Representatives in November. But for some of those candidates in particular, being seen as close with Trump poses a risk. A survey of more than 70 Republican candidates and lawmakers by Politico found considerable reluctance toward the convention.
Numerous candidates in competitive districts appear to shy away from being too closely associated with the president. The fact that some candidates are even avoiding their own party's convention altogether highlights the Trump dilemma. On the one hand, he could mobilize the MAGA base. On the other, his presence could also alienate moderate voters and even boost the opposition.
A record of achievements or an attack on Democrats?
Despite the president's weak poll numbers, the convention's choreography initially focuses on a positive record of his time in office so far. Topics such as the economy, border security, trade and public safety are intended to show what Trump has already accomplished from the Republicans' perspective.
With segments such as "Two Visions for America" and "The Opposition Contrast," the convention is designed as an attack on the Democrats. Republicans portray them as a party dominated by the political left and a Democratic congressional majority as a threat to Trump's policies so far. In fact, it could block his agenda over the next two years and give Congress significantly more power to oversee and investigate the administration.
Does Trump have an answer to high living costs?
Trump's economic record is a particularly hard sell. The convention program focuses on what Trump has already done: his tax cuts, lower drug prices and efforts to promote domestic production.
Whether he can offer anything substantially new in Dallas remains unclear. Political scientist Sascha Lohmann of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) considers that unlikely. In such campaign settings, Trump's speeches are usually poorly structured and rarely outline specific policy measures, he says.
"What we see there is almost a kind of 'stream of consciousness,'" Lohmann continues. Trump tends to reveal over an extended period "whatever may happen to be going through his mind at the time."
The problem for Trump is that his telling of an economic success story does not match the perceptions of many Americans. In a recent FT/Focaldata poll, nearly two-thirds say the US economy is heading in the wrong direction. A total of 57% even say their personal financial situation has worsened since Trump took office again.
What will Trump say about the Iran war?
Perhaps the most striking element of the planned program is that the Iran war hardly figures in it. Among the 109 announced program items and speakers, there is a segment marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks alongside economic topics, but there is no attention paid to the ongoing war with Iran.
The convention organizers seem keen to keep the politically thorny issue out of the limelight as much as possible. Trump himself, however, has so far taken a different approach and continues to portray the war as a success. Lohmann expects him to maintain that line in Dallas as well.
He says that Trump's argument is "that Iran has been weakened to a greater extent than any president before him has ever managed, that its nuclear program has been wiped out and that the Iranians are now virtually begging for an end to the conflict."
Will Dallas set the stage for Trump's succession?
Officially, Dallas is about the midterms, but straight after the midterm elections, talk will move on to the next presidential election. Trump's Vice President JD Vance has been given a prominent role at the convention, while his potentially most important party rival, Marco Rubio, is not on the speaker list so far.
Trump will almost certainly not crown Vance as his successor in Dallas, but his vice president will have an opportunity to present himself to the MAGA audience as a potential heir to the movement.
"It seems likely that the vice president will be a central focus in Dallas," Lohmann says, "not least because Vance has so far had to bear very little political responsibility for the war with Iran."
