WASHINGTON — Republicans are gathering in Dallas this week for an unprecedented midterm convention, where President Donald Trump and his GOP allies will look to sell their agenda, rake in campaign cash and galvanize voters amid a difficult political climate.
The convention, a two-day affair at the American Airlines Center on the edge of downtown, will put Texas at the center of the political world as the state hits the homestretch of its most competitive election cycle in years.
Texas, a longtime GOP stronghold rich with conservative donors, is a natural landing spot for the party’s first ever midterm convention. But national Republicans will also arrive at a watershed moment for the party in Texas, as Democrat James Talarico threatens to end the GOP’s three decades of statewide electoral dominance in a Senate race that most analysts see as a tossup.
While Trump has thrice carried Texas and counts many of its top politicians as allies, his approval rating in the state has sagged since his 2024 election, where he posted his best margin in Texas of his three races. Just 43% of Texas voters approved of his job performance in last month’s Texas Politics Project poll, putting him 8 points underwater in the state hosting his midterm bash.
Among Trump’s closest allies in the nation is Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom the president elevated earlier this year by endorsing him in the Republican primary runoff over Sen. John Cornyn. Paxton is now in a tight contest against Talarico, with control of the Senate — and Trump’s ability to pursue legislative accomplishments in his final two years — at stake. On the stump, Paxton frequently reminds voters of the national importance of the race, saying that if Republicans lose Texas, “we’ve lost the country.”
Control of Congress’ lower chamber could also turn on Texas — and in particular, in a handful of congressional races in the southern, heavily-Latino part of the state where Republicans redrew districts last year, at Trump’s request, to yield more GOP seats. Those races could instead deliver Democrats the U.S. House majority if the GOP fails to reverse its eroding Latino support by Election Day.
Republicans hope to kickstart that effort this week in Dallas, where the GOP’s top politicians will be on display with no official platform to pass or delegate votes to count — freeing them to focus on energizing their base for November.
Republicans have pitched the convention as an opportunity to do just that, with the fates of everyone from Paxton to down-ballot candidates potentially reliant on lower-propensity MAGA voters, who helped deliver the GOP a trifecta in Washington in 2024 but have proven unreliable when Trump is not on the ballot. Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, has described the event as a “Trumpapalooza,” making clear that candidates who show up are associated with the president.
Democrats, meanwhile, are deploying their own elected officials to Dallas for counterprogramming, and they believe the Trump-forward display could whip their own voters up into a frenzy with early voting less than six weeks away
Vice President JD Vance will deliver a keynote address on Wednesday evening, the first night of the convention, and Trump will close out the event with a speech Thursday. The rest of the schedule is devoted to highlighting the GOP’s most popular achievements from the first half of Trump’s term — much of them enacted through Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act — and emphasizing the contrast between the parties by painting Democrats as far-left extremists.
Ten Texas politicians and candidates will take the stage along with the president and Republican party leaders. The list includes Paxton, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Ted Cruz. Several Texas members of Congress and congressional candidates — most of them in highly competitive races — will speak as well, including three of the five nominees in seats redrawn last summer with the intention of flipping them to GOP control.
The Texas speakers include Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Flower, Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, and candidates Carlos De La Cruz, Eric Flores and Tano Tijerina. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson will also address the convention.
In an interview on Patrick’s podcast last week, Trump said he wanted to recreate the same energy generated by conventions in presidential election years.
“The conventions have been great, and a lot of good things happen,” Trump said. “And it brings unity.”
The president will arrive in Dallas amid intense interest in his plans for the Senate race in Texas, where Talarico has built a narrow polling lead and vastly outspent Paxton. Trump’s super PAC coffers, brimming with more than $400 million, are highly coveted by a number of campaigns in Texas and elsewhere, including other Senate battlegrounds where advertising dollars go much further. Trump’s political team made its first general election ad buy on Saturday in Texas — to the tune of $10 million for streaming and digital ads boosting Paxton and attacking Talarico — emphasizing the centrality of the Lone Star State to the president’s plans this cycle.
Trump said last week that he has close to $1 billion available for political spending, and that he plans to use up to $500 million in the midterms.
The president has said he’s committed to helping Paxton campaign while also disparaging his appearance on multiple occasions last week. At one point, the president said that while “you might not like the way he dresses” or “the way he looks,” Paxton has been the best attorney general in the country.
“We’re going to have a lot of speakers,” Trump told Patrick of the convention. “And the ones we want to focus on will be, obviously, Ken Paxton. We got to get him elected. He’s a good man. I know him very well. He really was a great attorney general.”
The Republican National Committee is aiming to feature a mix of GOP candidates and everyday Americans to promote an array of policy wins and aspirations. Topics on the menu include the implementation of the “no tax on tips” policy, which allows workers to claim a deduction on tip income, and the creation of Trump Accounts, investment vehicles for kids. Both were priorities of Cruz that made it into the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Each hour of the convention will be themed with different elements of the GOP agenda, including tax cuts, border enforcement and “cultural common sense.” Candidates in target districts will be showcased on both nights, and Texas politicians and candidates are expected to be featured.
One way Republicans hope to get the base fired up in a tough cycle? Bash the opposition.
The convention schedule will feature video presentations drawing a contrast with Democratic candidates in marquee races. The event will feature video spots of Democrats saying things the GOP has spent the midterm cycle casting as radical and disqualifying. It is expected to include ample clips of Talarico, according to a person familiar with Republicans’ midterm planning.
Rep. Roger Williams, R-Willow Park, said the contrast will be stark.
“All of us are going to get the message out,” Williams said. “It really has great timing from our standpoint, because now we can compare socialism, Marxism, communism with what Texas values are all about and American values: capitalism and free markets.”
Many GOP elected officials’ participation in the convention has been up in the air, with dozens of U.S. House members skipping out or still deciding. But participation among Texas’ elected officials figures to be strong.
In brief interviews, a majority of Texas’ Republican delegation surveyed in Washington said they planned to attend.
“We’re Texas — so we kind of better be there,” said Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Tyler, who said he will be in Dallas for the festivities.
The convention also represents a fundraising opportunity for Republicans across the country to tap Dallas’ deep donor pool.
Trump highlighted Dallas Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson, who gave over $100 million to Trump’s reelection effort in 2024, in his conversation with Patrick.
“We’re having it in Dallas,” Trump said. “We have it in the great basketball arena, and Miriam has been fantastic. She’s the owner of the team. She’s been really great. And it’s going to be a phenomenal two days.”
But some Republicans are passing based on the minimum $25,000 the National Republican Congressional Committee is reportedly asking each House GOP member to pony up if they want to attend.
Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, defended the cost in an interview with TMZ.
“Part of our dues are to make sure that we’re supporting other candidates who are in very tough, competitive races around the country,” Van Duyne said. “I think what that was is just kind of an incentive that we need to make sure that we’re all supporting our party.”
The path to House and Senate majorities could very well run through Texas this cycle, with Republicans holding a razor-thin margin in the House and Democrats looking to pick up four spots in the Senate while defending their current seats.
Texas Republicans gerrymandered the state’s congressional lines last year at Trump’s behest, shading five districts a darker red to help pad their House majority. But with persistent backlash to high costs and the Trump administration’s war in Iran and aggressive deportation campaign — and Latino voters appearing to turn on the GOP — competitive polling in some South Texas districts has raised the specter of a “dummymander,” in which the aggressive redraw backfires on Republicans.
Texas Democrats, meanwhile, plan to hold two news conferences a day near the convention grounds, where their own national and state officials will be featured.
Talarico plans to host a “Love Thy Neighbor” grocery drive beginning Wednesday, dubbing the Republican convention a “Billionaire Ball celebrating corrupt tariffs, billionaire tax breaks and a new forever war that are all driving grocery costs through the roof.”
“Billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians will gather at a convention in Dallas to clink champagne glasses and toast their own corruption,” Talarico said in a statement last week. “We’ll be doing something different.”
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