DALLAS — Donald Trump has made the November midterm elections about him, even more so than they may have been before.

The president’s unusual two-day midterm convention in Dallas cemented that reality, as Republicans face a risky map to maintain control of the House — and could even lose the Senate — for the final two years of Trump’s White House tenure.

Trump has long been the GOP’s driving force. But the 2026 outcome will largely hinge on whether he can bring out his MAGA base, or whether the economy, the Iran war or another complaint helps Democrats regain power against him.

“You got to do me a big, the biggest favor you’ve ever done me,” Trump said, closing out the event Thursday night. “You’ve got to do this for me. You’ve got to pretend I’m on the ticket.”

“You got to do me a big, the biggest favor you’ve ever done me,” Trump said, closing out the event Thursday night. “You’ve got to do this for me. You’ve got to pretend I’m on the ticket.”

President Donald Trump

Keeping the Republican majority in Congress would defy the typical force that favors the party out of power in midterms.

Republicans lost the House in a rout in 2018, the midterm of Trump’s first four years as president, yet managed to pick up Senate seats by defeating fragile incumbents in redder states. Now, Republicans are vulnerable to losing control of the House as Democrats also chart a path to taking back Senate control as well, a drive that hinges on their ability to persuade Trump-friendly states to go a different route than they have in recent years.

Trump will never be able to legally run for president again. But the Republican Party is still his, even with the risk that its devotion could spur stark losses less than eight weeks from Election Day. Trump gives Republicans a powerful tool to drive their turnout and a unified political foe for Democrats to organize against.

Here are some takeaways from two days watching “Trumpapalooza”:

Texas Senate race gets big spotlight

By picking Dallas as the site of the convention, natural attention flowed to the state’s marquee race that has wide-ranging implications for the nation: the Senate contest.

The state’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, running in a Trump-styled outsider lane, defeated a fortune of outside spending and party pushback to oust incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn earlier this year in a primary runoff.

After a controversial decade as the state’s attorney general, Paxton is now mired in a general election race that is worrying Republicans given the stakes.

Paxton spoke on day one of the convention Wednesday. But the convention also meant plenty of media and attention to Texas for his rival in the Senate race, Democratic State Rep. James Talarico.

Democrats won’t be able to win control of the Senate without winning seats in red states such as Texas.

But the midterm convention, which has nationalized the race for Paxton and Trump, has also drawn attention to the Democrat trying to win a Senate seat on the left for the first time in the state since 1988.

Running against “the radical left” 

The Democratic Party does not have a lone leader as it sits in the political wilderness in Washington at this stage of the Trump era.

That means there was no singular figure still in power for the right to villainize at the midterm convention. While a fair share of scorn was directed toward Joe Biden’s presidency, some of the GOP’s most forward-looking antagonism was trained on the rise of democratic socialism within its rival party.

Democrats themselves have a fraught relationship already with their insurgent wing. Members of the Democratic Socialists of America are also some of the biggest critics of the Democratic Party at large.

The DSA wing of the party in terms of federal elected officials is small but growing. But wins by DSA-aligned candidates in notable blue races during this year’s primaries have allowed Republicans to try to paint Democrats as even more wildly radical and out of touch than they have claimed in past years. The DSA’s rise is a byproduct of Trump defeating the Democratic Party in 2016 and then again in 2024. Now Trump and Republicans are attempting to use that against their opponents.

A Trump dividend that could turn off the base

Trump’s time leading the party has caused the GOP to rethink its direction and approach. Loyalty and support for Trump and his ideals have often taken precedence over what defined Republicans in the decades before he upended politics. But a vulnerability within that coalition has lingered when it comes to money matters.

Within its core political philosophy, the Republican Party is the one that attempts to paint itself as being the financially wiser and more disciplined of the two major parties. 

But the president’s promise on the first day of the convention that “if the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” he would “issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” on its face seems almost impossible to implement in a financially sound way and raises a host of ethical questions.

It also carries the risk of worrying fiscal conservatives who still call the Republican Party home, especially at a time when Trump is trying to assert his strength through his base. Or the proposal may just be written off as another dash of hyperbole from the commander in chief.

2028 has begun

As Vice President JD Vance spoke Thursday night, there seemed already to be an awareness in the arena that there’s an end in sight to Trump’s time in the White House.

The office of the president is term-limited, meaning in two years time, the Republican Party will have picked a new nominee for president after years and years of Trump being the only White House nominee the right has known.

And the byproduct of Vance being Trump’s running mate is that the former Ohio senator is the heir apparent to everything Trump has created. Now, Vance hasn’t said he’s running, and Trump hasn’t endorsed any successor, but nights like this where the bright lights are on Vance are an opportunity for the vice president to start making his case.

A case, on this night, that was followed by the president himself speaking once again.

The post It was Trump’s show at the GOP convention. And it will be Trump’s midterms in November. appeared first on MS NOW.

From MS Now.