President Donald Trump will be at the center of this week’s GOP midterm convention. Many of his fellow Republicans are hoping he doesn’t make it all about him.
The parade of lawmakers, candidates, donors and party officials now headed to Dallas for the two-day spectacle are counting on Trump to make a compelling pitch on the national stage before voters hit the polls.
According to interviews with dozens of Republicans, they are largely hoping for a two-pronged approach aimed at getting the president’s committed supporters off the sidelines: a focus on what they call Democrats’ extreme positions and the accomplishments of the Republican Congress — most of which are now more than a year old.
“Communism vs. common sense,” Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) said in an interview, calling the event a “scene-setter” that should stay laser-focused on “what’s on the line” for voters in the election.
Republicans have reasons to be wary. Trump’s approval ratings are at record lows for his time in office, and many swing-district GOP lawmakers are torn between running from an unpopular president and alienating his base of committed supporters.
There is little evidence Trump is content to let rank-and-file Republicans run away from him. The first pair of national midterm ads funded by his cash-rich political operation put Trump at the very center.
One ad begins with businessman Dana White extolling Trump as “the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met.”
The other is more up congressional Republicans’ alley, with a Trump voiceover running through a litany of tax cuts included in last year’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
Even if not all agree Trump is the party’s best spokesperson at this point, they are eager to see a new effort to promote the tax cuts, which were enacted in July 2025, and want to see them touted anew in Dallas.
“It’s incredibly important that we highlight what we’ve accomplished,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said in an interview. “That’s the perfect venue for that.”
“It’s a great opportunity for us to brag about what the Republican Party has done the last year and a half,” added Rep. Craig Goldman (R-Texas). “So certainly talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
While Van Orden and Goldman are attending the convention, which kicks off Wednesday and ends Thursday, many other lawmakers and candidates are staying back in their districts. Some of those Republicans said they have scheduling conflicts or simply want to campaign back home.
But there are also qualms about Trump’s obsession with priorities that many of them consider off-message ahead of the midterms — such as pressuring Congress to take up the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act.
As GOP lawmakers begged Trump to get serious about tackling the high cost of living, the president has instead openly scoffed at “affordability” as an issue concocted by Democrats to hurt Republicans.
He refused for months to help pass a major legislative package over the summer designed to help lower housing costs, and his trade wars and ongoing conflict with Iran have contributed to persistent inflation. A recent import deal designed to address rising beef prices came at the cost of upsetting American cattlemen.
Speaker Mike Johnson brushed off a question last week about the risk of having candidates show up at a Trump-focused event given his disapproval ratings.
“It was the president’s idea, which is why he’s getting credit for it, and it’s rightfully so,” Johnson said. “I think it’s going to be an extraordinary opportunity for us to get a couple of nights on national television to talk about our extraordinary record of achievement.”
Other Republicans said the president was well positioned to send a message of “promises made, promises kept.”
“Politics 101 is just telling folks what you’re going to do, and then come to Washington and do it, and then go back and tell them what you did,” said Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.). “When you look at President Trump’s agenda, securing the border, we’ve done that. That he wanted to make the tax cuts permanent, we’ve done that.”
“Peace through strength — and I think we have moved in that direction,” he added. “Obviously, we got detoured to this journey over in Iran.”
If there is one consensus message Republicans want the convention oriented around, it’s the choice between the legislative record Trump will be touting and a Democratic Party that they argue has moved way too far to the left — especially as progressive candidates, some of them democratic socialists, continue to win key primaries.
Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.), a deputy chair of the House GOP campaign arm, said “you’re going to see on full display each night a contrast that we’ve never seen before in politics.”
“You’ve got Republicans that are campaigning on commonsense ideas. You’ve got Democrats that are being drawn to the absolute most extreme left of their party,” he said. “So I expect each night to see that on full display.”
RNC national press secretary Natalie Baldassarre also said in a statement that the event would “put front and center Democrats’ desire to abolish police and prisons, raise costs, and strip away our freedoms,” while also promoting “Republicans’ historic achievements.”
“The Democratic Party has taken a turn for the worse recently,” added Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), who is in a competitive race and not attending the convention. “America needs to be quite aware of that as they make their decision here in November.”
LaLota is just one of scores of Republican members who are choosing not to travel to the convention — which has a price tag of $25,000 and up for lawmakers attending — but who have an interest in how the event goes off and what impression it gives voters.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) called the midterm convention — the first held since Democrats did them in the late 1970s and early 1980s — “an interesting concept” and said he would be paying close attention to the size of the television audience. But he said he would be back in his safe red district campaigning.
“I’m going to look forward to listening to it on the radio as I’m driving down the road, going from one spot in my district to another,” he said.
Jordain Carney and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
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