‘Trump got the headlines he wanted’: Inside the Republican midterm convention

Dallas: At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, 17 supersized photographs lined the walls outside the main arena. Sixteen of them were of Donald Trump (the other was a crowd shot from the previous convention).

This might have been a Republican Party event, but there’s no doubt who it was for .

“I’m not on the ticket,” Trump said during his closing appearance on night two . “You’ve got to pretend. You’ve got to do me the biggest favour you’ve ever done me. You’ve got to do this for me. You’ve got to pretend I’m on the ticket. I’m on the ticket. I’m on the ticket. He’s on the ticket. Pretend I’m on the ticket.”

On the face of it, it’s an odd strategy. Trump’s approval rating nationally is in the 30s: 33 per cent, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll of 1167 Americans at the end of August. It has never been lower throughout this second term.

Making the election a referendum on an unpopular president seems like a recipe for disaster. But Republicans’ strategy relies on convincing Trump’s base to show up on November 3 and vote for the Republican candidate in their district, and for the Senate.

“A lot of people that came out for President Trump don’t come out unless his name is physically on the ballot,” says Aaron Del Mar, a Republican Party operative from Illinois who is running to become the state’s lieutenant governor.

“So, this whole program is an effort to try to drive those Trump supporters that only vote for him to come out and vote for all Republicans up and down the ticket.”

Del Mar points out that in Illinois – a blue state – Trump received 700,000 more votes than the Republican candidate for governor did in 2022, and 200,000 more votes than the successful Democratic candidate for governor, JB Pritzker.

“The whole point and the whole reason [for this convention] is to engage what we call low propensity voters. Those are voters that traditionally will vote in presidential elections, but won’t vote in midterms. By our math, if we drive out about 40 to 45 per cent of those unreliable voters, we can flip our state.”

Hence, the two days here in Dallas with dozens of speakers singing Trump’s praises, an onslaught of Trump imagery, and pleas from the man himself – including leading the crowd in reciting a pledge to “ the greatest president in the history of the United States”.

The stakes are high for Trump because if Republicans lose control of one or both chambers, not only will he lose the power to legislate, but he will likely be subject to impeachment proceedings, as in his first term. It will make for a trying final two years, even though he will retain the executive power he has wielded so emphatically.

Both sides are not so much appealing to independent or swing voters as they are trying to motivate their own bases to show up to the polls. Such is the reality in a country that is so harshly divided, and where the two big parties stand so far apart.

“Trump’s popularity is the same as it’s always been – high among his supporters, low among his opponents,” Allyn Meyers, chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, tells this masthead on the sidelines at Dallas.

“Look who we’re running against.