In the mid-term presidential election, on November 3, the name of the president of the USA Donald Trump will not be on the ballot. However, his party puts him again in the center of a big party meeting two months earlier. Republicanand on Wednesday and Thursday gather in Dallas, in the "American Airlines Center", which can accommodate about 20.000 spectators, for the "Republican convention on the eve of the mid-term elections".
Such large party rallies in the United States are usually held only in the run-up to presidential elections. The Democrats experimented with similar gatherings in the 1970s and early 1980s, but this format is new for the Republicans. In Texas, they want to mobilize Trump supporters for Republican candidates.
How much Trump can the election campaign take?
Republicans enter the election campaign with an unpopular president. According to a current survey by Reuters and Ipsos, only 33 percent of citizens support Donald Trump. In addition, the Democrats are currently much better mobilized. Almost half of their supporters say that they look forward to the mid-term elections with particular enthusiasm, while only 31 percent of Republicans do.
Despite this, the entire program of the party meeting is subordinated to Trump. The president will speak on both nights, so he will be much more in the spotlight than the Republican candidates who will actually fight for seats in the Senate and House of Representatives in November. However, it is precisely for some of these candidates that being close to Trump is a risk. In a poll of more than 70 Republican candidates and members of Congress, Politico magazine found significant reservations about the gathering.
A number of candidates in uncertain constituencies are apparently wary of associating themselves too closely with the president. The fact that some candidates are even completely absent from their own caucus shows Trump's dilemma. On the one hand, he should primarily mobilize the base of the MAGA movement, while, on the other hand, his strong presence could at the same time repel moderate voters and additionally mobilize political opponents.
Balance or attack on the Democrats?
Despite the current weak results of the president in public opinion polls, the program of the party meeting is initially focused on the positive balance of his mandate so far. Topics like the economy, border security, trade and public safety should show what Trump, from the Republican point of view, has already accomplished.
With blocs like "Two Visions of America" and "Confronting the Adversary", the party rally was simultaneously designed as an attack on the Democrats. The Republicans present them as a party dominated by the political left, and the eventual Democratic majority in Congress as a threat to the policies that Trump has pursued so far. Such a majority could effectively block his policy agenda for the next two years and give Congress far greater powers to oversee and investigate the government.
Does Trump have an answer to the high cost of living?
It is especially difficult to defend such a profit and loss account when it comes to the economy. The caucus agenda mostly deals with what Trump has already done: cut taxes, lower drug prices and encourage domestic manufacturing.
It is not clear whether he can offer anything fundamentally new in Dallas. Political scientist Sasha Lohmann of the Science and Policy Foundation (SWP) thinks this is unlikely. In such pre-election appearances, Trump's speeches are mostly poorly structured and rarely linked to concrete political measures. "We're actually already almost seeing something like 'stream of consciousness'," says Lohmann. According to him, during long periods of time, Trump rather reveals "what may be going through his head".
The problem for Trump is that his economic success story does not match the way many Americans perceive the situation. According to a current FT/Focaldata survey, almost two-thirds of respondents believe that the American economy is moving in the wrong direction. As many as 57 percent state that their personal financial situation has worsened since Trump took office.
What will Trump do about the war against Iran?
Perhaps most strikingly, war against Iran is barely mentioned in his agenda. Among the 109 announced agenda items and speakers, in addition to economic topics there is a block devoted to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, but no similar special segment devoted to the current war against Iran.
The organizers of the party meeting are clearly trying to keep the politically complex topic aside as much as possible. Trump himself, however, follows a different line and continues to present the war as a success. Lohmann expects to stick with that in Dallas as well. Trump's argument is that "Iran has been weakened more than any president before him, that the nuclear program has been practically destroyed and that the Iranians are now, as it were, begging for an end to the conflict."
Will Dallas already become the stage for Trump's successor?
Officially, it's mid-term elections in Dallas, but after them the focus will be on the next presidential election. Trump's vice president, JD Vance, is getting a prominent spot at the caucus, while his potentially most important intra-party rival, Marco Rubio, is not yet on the speaker list.
Trump in Dallas will most certainly not announce Vance as his successor yet, but his vice president gets the opportunity to present himself to the audience of the MAGA movement as a possible successor to Trump's legacy at the head of that movement. "It seems likely that the attention in Dallas will be focused on the vice president, among other things, because Vance has had to take very little political responsibility for the war against Iran so far," says Lohmann, an expert at the German Foundation for Science and Policy.
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