By
Ed Kilgore,
political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015
Democrats’ best hope for the midterms is that voters only have one thing when they head to the polls in November: their opinion of Donald Trump. If, as is usually the case, the midterms are principally a referendum on the job performance of the occupant of the White House, then Republicans are going to lose, barring some extremely unlikely revival in Trump’s popularity, which took a nosedive shortly after his second term began and has not recovered. Yes, Republicans have put a fat thumb on the scales via unprecedented gerrymandering of U.S. House districts and have a big financial advantage. But in the end, they can’t overcome any national fixation on giving Trump a bad report card for his tumultuous second term.
As it happens, the president is insisting on giving Democrats exactly what they want: keeping the attention on him. That is certainly the likely upshot of the first-ever GOP midterm convention being held in Dallas in less than three weeks, just before early voting begins in parts of the country. Check out this announcement from the man himself on Truth Social and ask yourself if there is any chance the mini-convention won’t be the most self-absorbed Trump-o-centric event ever:
