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.
