President Trump and the Republican National Committee are staging an unprecedented midterm convention at Dallas's American Airlines Center this week, but several notable GOP figures, including First Lady Melania Trump and Sen. Susan Collins, plan to skip it.
The two-night event, built around keynote addresses from Trump on Wednesday and Vice President JD Vance on Thursday, is designed to rally the party's base and showcase down-ballot candidates with just 55 days until the November midterm elections. No Republican president has ever attempted a midterm convention; the last party to try was the Democrats in the 1970s. That the GOP is reviving the format now, with Trump's approval rating sitting at 33% in a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, the lowest of either of his terms, tells you how seriously the party is taking the November map.
The RNC described the convention's purpose in blunt terms: to present "a clear and bold plan of the work [it] will continue to do on behalf of the hard-working and patriotic Americans after we achieve victory in November." Immigration will anchor the messaging. "The message is simple," the committee said. "Americans want strong borders and sound immigration policies, not sanctuary cities and the unspeakable crimes that comes with them."
Roughly 100 House Republican members and candidates are expected in Dallas, ABC News reported, about half the House GOP conference and its slate of fall challengers. The speaker lineup is heavy with Cabinet firepower: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Attorney General Todd Blanche, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and HUD Secretary Scott Turner are all set to deliver keynote remarks.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Tim Scott round out the congressional leadership on stage. Battleground Senate candidates including Ohio's Jon Husted, Texas's Ken Paxton, Georgia's Mike Collins, North Carolina's Michael Whatley, and Michigan's Mike Rogers will also speak, each representing a seat the party needs to hold or flip.
The convention doubles as a major fundraising operation. An RNC donor invitation obtained by ABC News shows that a seat at Trump's Wednesday roundtable costs $250,000 per person, with an additional $88,600 required for a photo with the president. Vance's Thursday roundtable runs $75,000 per seat, plus $35,000 for a photo. Those are steep entry fees, but the party plainly needs the cash heading into a cycle where its political environment is far from friendly.
For a unity event, the list of absentees is conspicuous. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine will miss the convention. Rep. Zach Nunn, an Iowa Republican running in a toss-up district, told ABC News he will be working in his district instead. That is a defensible choice for a member in a competitive seat, but it also signals that not every vulnerable Republican sees a rally with the president as a net positive right now.
Internal GOP tensions have been a recurring theme this Congress. Some Republican senators have clashed openly with party leadership over key legislation, and the fractures have not healed cleanly heading into the midterm stretch.
Two Senate candidates running in toss-up races, Ashley Hinson of Iowa and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, were left off the speaker list entirely. ABC News reached out to both campaigns and received no response, leaving it unclear whether either will attend at all. When candidates in the closest races cannot confirm they will show up at the party's signature event, that gap speaks for itself.
First Lady Melania Trump will also skip the convention, a White House official confirmed. The official did not provide a reason. She attended the final night of the 2024 Republican National Convention when her husband was running for his second term, but her public appearances during this administration have been selective.
Democrats are not content to let Republicans own the week in Texas. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that a delegation of House Democratic members will travel to Dallas to spotlight the party's affordability message, a direct counterprogramming move aimed at drawing media attention away from the convention stage.
Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico went further. He announced a "Love Thy Neighbor" grocery drive, a statewide volunteer effort to support North Texans struggling to afford groceries. Volunteers will sort and package food "just down the road from where the convention will be held." Talarico is running against Ken Paxton in what polls suggest is a toss-up race, and the optics are deliberate: while Republicans raise six-figure sums inside the arena, Democrats want cameras on families who cannot cover their grocery bills.
That contrast, a quarter-million-dollar donor roundtable versus a food drive, is the kind of split-screen Democrats have been chasing all cycle. Whether it moves voters in a midterm environment shaped by inflation, immigration, and a foreign conflict with Iran is another question entirely. Republicans will argue that the convention is about policy substance, not donor access. Democrats will argue the price tags tell a different story.
The broader Republican effort to unify its candidates and message ahead of November mirrors similar coordination plays in contested primaries earlier this year. In Michigan, for instance, Trump endorsed John James for governor after a rival dropped out to consolidate the field, the kind of top-down party management the Dallas convention is designed to project on a national scale.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll released in late August measured Trump's approval at 33%, the lowest mark of either of his two terms. That number is the backdrop against which every speech, every fundraising pitch, and every empty chair at the convention will be judged. Midterm elections are historically referendums on the sitting president, and a sub-35% approval rating has never been comfortable territory for the party in power.
The convention's two-night structure, themed around the administration's agenda, with Trump opening and closing the event, is an attempt to set the terms of that referendum on Republican turf. Strong borders, immigration enforcement, and economic messaging will dominate the programming. The question is whether a convention format can do what daily governance has not: shift the political environment in the party's favor before November.
Some of the resistance within GOP ranks is not about Trump personally but about the practical calculus of competitive races. Candidates in purple districts and swing states have to weigh whether a convention appearance helps or hurts with the suburban and independent voters who decide close elections. That tension between the party's base-mobilization strategy and its swing-voter problem has defined Republican politics for years, and it is on full display in Dallas.
Trump himself has faced pushback from within his own coalition on issues ranging from infrastructure policy to legislative priorities. The convention is, in part, an effort to paper over those divisions with a show of strength, packed arena, prime-time speeches, a unified message on the issues where the party polls best.
Meanwhile, the administration has been navigating a difficult stretch on multiple fronts. The foreign policy landscape, including tensions with Iran referenced in reporting on the political headwinds facing the White House, adds another variable that no amount of convention stagecraft can fully control. GOP leaders have pressed for accountability on issues that resonate with their base, but translating that energy into midterm victories requires more than rhetoric.
Conventions are exercises in projection. The party wants to project unity, energy, and inevitability. The absences, Collins, Nunn, possibly Hinson and Sullivan, the First Lady, project something else. They project a party that is not entirely sure whether standing next to this president, at this moment, is the right move for every member.
That does not mean the convention is a failure before it starts. A hundred House members and a roster of Cabinet secretaries is a substantial show of force. The fundraising haul alone could reshape several competitive races. And the immigration message the RNC is centering remains the party's strongest card in most battleground polling.
But a first-ever midterm convention only works if it looks like a launch pad, not a life raft. With 55 days left, the party faithful gathering in Dallas need the event to create momentum, not just headlines about who did not show up.
When half the team flies to the rally and the other half stays home to work their districts, the party's confidence problem is not on the stage. It is in the math.
