The GOP midterms strategy is Trump and a prayer

People hold signs on the first day of the 2026 Republican National Convention in Dallas. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images Welcome to The Midterms, Actually.

Every week I’ll be writing about two things: one big idea or trend I see forming across the 2026 primaries, and one thing I’m hearing from a voice on the ground.

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Let’s get into it.

One big idea: What are Republicans actually running on? The first-of-its-kind Republican midterms convention began in the same vein as President Donald Trump’s second term: open grift.

The president announced a pledge to give every American $5,000 if Republicans win the House and the Senate — part of what he’s calling a new dividend for American voters, and what some Democrats are calling an attempted bribe.

Obviously, there are lots of questions about Trump’s announcement: Who will pay for the $1 trillion-plus dividend? Taxpayers.

Could this even happen without congressional approval? Probably not .

Why not just vote on it now, while Republicans control Congress? It would likely fail .

But I think the pronouncement — and the GOP convention broadly — is best understood as a proxy for the Republican message in the midterm elections, not a policy roadmap for what Trump would do if Republicans maintained control of the House and Senate.

So what can we actually glean from the GOP’s two-day bonanza in Dallas, and how does the message they were offering on that made-for-TV platform match up with the message they’ve delivered on the campaign trail? I took a close look at the convention speeches on Wednesday and Thursday, dug through our America, Actually reporting focusing on Republican voters and their candidates, and pulled together some trends that help explain the GOP strategy for defying the odds (and the polling) come Election Day.

1.

Republicans are mostly in hiding — One reason Trump’s midterm convention sticks out in this year’s landscape: It’s one of the rare places Republicans will campaign out loud.

Congressional candidates, even in battleground House districts, have rarely held public events or town halls this year.