Trump Palooza Is Officially a Flop

I know, almost impossible to believe

By: Austin Abbring

September 30, 2026

Donald Trump and the GOP’s midterm convention is a complete and utter flop. It was always going to be a failure for a multitude of reasons, starting first and foremost with the fact that it is not a good sign for your party when you have to hold midterm conventions to rally the public behind your policies and vision. Especially against a Democratic Party that just last summer was polling at an all-time low. This is immediately undercut by the fact that Donald Trump has a record-low approval rating for any president at this point in their term. You may wonder when the last time either party held a convention ahead of the midterms while in power. You would have to go all the way back to the Jimmy Carter administration, nearly 50 years ago, to find that answer. The Republican Party is expected to lose out big in the upcoming elections, as they obviously should, and this attempt to rekindle the fire has only backfired.

Starting with the viewership, it was abysmal. Donald Trump claimed viewership surpassed the NFL’s opening night (which was the same night as the convention) and that around 100 million people tuned in to watch President Trump, J.D. Vance, and other Republican lawmakers stand on stage and broadcast a monsoon of lies to the American public. The Nielsen report estimates that only around 3 million people actually watched the speeches. Fox News had only 2.5 million viewers, which means Newsmax and other propaganda stations were competing for those final roughly a million views. The Republican Party spent $40 million dollars on this convention. A convention held in Dallas, Texas, as a means to help bolster Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton in his fight against Democrat James Talarico. That sentence should be sending smoke signals into the sky as to how grossly unpopular Donald Trump’s brand is with the American people. The GOP is learning the harsh reality of how Trump goes; so does the party. Well, there goes the party. Even if Ken Paxton somehow wins his Senate race, Republican-aligned PACs and groups have spent roughly $300 million on what should have been the safest Senate seat for the GOP in historically deep-red Texas. What an absolute disaster. An own goal. 

So much so that a leaked audio recording of Ken Paxton is going viral over his concerns about the convention and Donald Trump: “So to be honest with you, the numbers - when we did that convention - it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.” He is referring not only to his own numbers, but also to Republicans in other tight battles for House and Senate seats. Many of those races are in what should have been safe seats in, again, very red states. Kansas, Florida, Alaska, and Iowa are all up for grabs. El-Sayed is gaining separation in his Michigan race, and North Carolina and Georgia should be easy Senate wins for Democrats, too. Troy Jackson in Maine is within 3 points of Susan Collins, and some polls have him at least tied or slightly ahead. Also, do not forget that Republicans had to spend over $30 million to unseat Thomas Massie in Kentucky earlier this year for another, more fully Trump-aligned candidate. If you had asked just about anybody two years ago whether Trump and Vance would have to help campaign for conservative candidates in Texas, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to preserve safe red seats, people would have looked at you as if the moon had cratered into Lake Michigan. Well, guess where the moon has cratered.

Continuing a bit with polling, following this blasphemous convention, Democratic polling actually rose a few points as Republican polling dropped several points. That said, I want to reiterate that this is all just polling and speculation. None of this is set in stone, and it will only matter if people actually show up and vote. Donald Trump and Republicans are not just going to lay down easily either. I mean, Trump attempted to overthrow the United States government last time he lost an election, so we cannot expect him or the GOP to be gracious losers in what is expected to be a wipeout. I am cautiously optimistic that the midterms will happen and that Democrats will take at least the House; however, Donald Trump will do something. Whether that is to continue to wage war on voter registration and voting rights, meddle in states’ rights to authorize over elections, declare martial law over the Iran war, or any other litany of nonsensical excuses, or send ICE to polling places to intimidate voters, I think that is all within the realm of possibility. Every midterm cycle is advertised as an existential fight where every vote counts. This time, I think it most certainly feels that way. I do not want to understate the gravity of these midterms. They are the most critical for the preservation of our democracy this country has ever faced. Either we get out, vote, and hope for the best, or fascism is here for the long haul and is not defanged. There is no going back from that point.