DALLAS (AP) — President Donald Trump took the stage to cap Wednesday’s opening night of the unusual Republican midterm convention, hammering home the message that Democrats are extremists and reveling in making the upcoming elections all about himself – even if his low approval ratings may hurt the party in close races around the country.
Many Republicans, including those facing tight races, are skipping the two-day affair in Dallas, while others hope
their appearance will put them in the national spotlight as they work to turn out Trump's supporters in a year without him on the ballot.
“If we hand America's future to the radical-left Democrats, our nation will spend the next decade just getting back on its feet. It'll be a tragedy," Trump said. "Vote Republican and we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come.”
The convention — part rally, part fundraiser — comes as Republicans try to boost enthusiasm heading into the final stretch before Election Day, despite voters' economic concerns and dissatisfaction with the war in Iran. Much of the agenda sought to cast Democrats as too left wing, describing them as communists, anti-American or even evil. Republicans called themselves a “common sense” alternative in the fight to maintain control of Congress.
“I’m sure it will become a staple in the years to come,” Trump said.
The show got a boost from an unlikely source, Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, who said in a video message that “I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism.” Fetterman, who has clashed with his party's leaders, referenced his state's steel industry in pledging to “work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life."
Coinciding with the convention's opening night, Trump’s political operation, which has been sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, began spending heavily through a new group, the No Going Back PAC Inc., The New York Times first reported Wednesday. The group has reserved $49 million in six competitive Senate races and one competitive House race.
That’s in addition to the $10 million that MAGA Inc., Trump's super PAC, has spent on the Texas Senate race.
Normal political conventions are held every four years and serve a purpose beyond pomp and circumstance, with parties formally nominating their presidential picks. This week's convention, by contrast, is The Trump Show, through and through.
“Do we love President Trump?” Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters, one of the first speakers, asked the crowd. He had promoted the event before it began as "a Trump-a-Palooza.”
The walls of the basketball arena, where the Dallas Mavericks play, were covered with photographs of Trump, even in the elevators. Plenty of attendees wore cowboy hats and boots and many sequins were on display — as well as “Make America Great Again” and American flag caps and other gear.
People in the crowd waved signs reading “Republicans Are Fixing Democrats’ Mess,” despite Republicans controlling the U.S. House, Senate and presidency.
“Looks very big. Looks very exciting,” Trump said of the gathering crowd before boarding Air Force One to fly to Dallas.
That wasn't actually the case during the early hours of programming, when speeches were delivered to scores of empty seats, even in areas close to the stage. Crowds began mostly filling them before Trump's speech, though areas in the upper decks remained sparsely populated.
The president also said that oil prices — which have surged because of the Iran war — likely won’t come down until after the midterms, a bit of economic forecasting that could darken his party's fortunes.
“Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” he promised. That came as oil prices jumped more than 3% Wednesday.
Trump speaks both nights, delivering a keynote address on Wednesday night and speaking again on Thursday, after Vice President JD Vance gives his own address.
“Look, he’s an entertainer, right? He obviously loves big, big events and his career has been built around that,” said Ray Washburne, co-chair of the Dallas host committee, at a pre-convention event hosted by Bloomberg News. “He’s always front and center.”
Washburne said the event is expected to draw roughly 30,000 people across both nights, but getting airtime could be challenging. The NFL season kicked off Wednesday with a game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. On Thursday, the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams will play in Australia.
Speakers included Republican congressional leadership and Cabinet members like Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Attorney General Todd Blanche also spoke, which is uncommon for the nation's top law enforcement official, as Justice Department leaders don’t typically address such events given the agency’s tradition of political independence.
Blanche said Trump and Vance “put American families first. They prove that order and prosperity go hand in hand.”
North Carolina Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, who is running against former Gov. Roy Cooper. GOP Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who is facing off against Abdul El-Sayed, isn’t giving his speech until Thursday night. However, many opening night speakers singled out El-Sayed as a sign Democrats were too radical.
There are 12 hours of programming over two nights, with 100-plus speakers and segments focused on subjects such as tax cuts, fraud allegations, border security and a proposed ban on members of Congress trading stocks. Missing from the public agenda: any mention of the unpopular Iran war.
Washburne said there were strong reasons for some lawmakers and candidates to pass on attending.
“One thing, we just have so many speaking slots. We can’t get them all in. The other is: If you’re not in a contested race, it really doesn’t make much sense to come," he said, adding that such candidates “need to be in their home states to campaign.”
Some Republicans balked at high attendance fees. Republican House members were being asked to pay $25,000 for convention tickets and lodging, according to people familiar with the situation and granted anonymity to speak frankly about the private arrangement.
An additional 2,000 tickets were distributed by the National Republican Congressional Committee, largely to donors and others to attend the convention. Other tickets were allocated to state parties to distribute as they saw fit.
“Per the RNC, this is a ticketed fundraiser and rally, not a traditional national convention,” the Denton County Republican Party in Texas wrote in a Facebook post, which advertised packages from $5,000 to $20,000.
Still, more than 100 Republican House members and candidates were expected to attend, including almost all of the MAGA Majority class of candidates in congressional districts that Democrats have most targeted, according to a person familiar with the event who requested anonymity before it begins.
“The fact that these Republicans are planning a celebration in the middle of an economic crisis — where everyday Americans are drowning because of this high cost of living — is extraordinary,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said at the U.S. Capitol last week.
Democrats have held such midterm conventions in the past but are not doing so this year. Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said she wasn’t worried that her party was missing an opportunity to make its case on a national stage like Republicans.
“They are not focused on the issues that people are struggling with right now, that they’ve created,” DelBene said. “Cost, housing, food, healthcare, childcare, energy costs, gas prices all going up. That’s what we’re talking about on the ground all across the country.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Michelle L. Price in Dallas, Steven Sloan, Aamer Madhani and Lisa Mascaro in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa and Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia contributed to this report.
