Donald Trump hailed his first Republican midterm convention as a “solidly sold out winner.” The polling that followed tells a more complicated story.
A Hill/Emerson poll of 1,000 likely Texas voters found that 68 percent of independents who had heard about the two-day Dallas event, which was designed to fire up the GOP ahead of November’s elections, said it had made no difference to their excitement about voting.
Among Republicans, 59 percent said it had made them more enthusiastic, compared with 53 percent of Democrats.
“The Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas was a solidly sold out winner for Republicans,” the 80-year-old president posted on Truth Social on Monday evening.
White House spokesperson Allison Schuster told the Daily Beast: “President Trump is the ultimate turnout driver for the MAGA base, and last week’s historic, sold-out crowd proved it. While Radical Left Democrats fail the American people with tax hikes, soft-on-crime policies, and defunding of federal law enforcement, hardworking Americans have a champion in President Trump and his commonsense agenda of lower taxes, safer streets, and secure borders.”
However, Daily Beast reporters who attended the convention noted that it kicked off with a sea of empty chairs.
Another poll also showed the convention failed to land.
At the Dallas event, Trump promised Americans a $5,000 dividend if Republicans retain control of Congress in November. A Reuters/Ipsos survey of 1,143 Americans showed that the proposal has yet to translate into greater support for the GOP.
The poll showed Democrats leading Republicans 44 percent to 37 percent on the generic congressional ballot, a seven-point gap that was the widest recorded since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.
The poll also showed that 63 percent disapproved of the proposal—including four in 10 Republicans and nine in 10 Democrats.
While midterms are historically difficult for the party in power, things have been particularly bleak for the Republicans amid Trump’s deeply unpopular war in Iran.
The conflict, launched in February without congressional authorization, has sent energy prices sharply higher.
As of Thursday, the national average for a gallon of gas was $4.43. Overall, gas prices have climbed 52 percent since January, according to the AAA.
Diesel prices, meanwhile, have hit record highs of $6.34 a gallon. Brent crude also climbed to around $109 a barrel on Monday, its highest level since May.
Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker estimates the conflict has added more than $100 billion to U.S. gasoline and diesel costs, with the average household paying more than $750 extra.
Trump has insisted the price rises are temporary. “It’s a very inexpensive price to pay for what we’ve done,” Trump said at a rally for Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley in North Carolina on Wednesday. “Remember that. It’s a little more. It’s even—if it was, frankly, even, it was a lot more. But that’s gonna come tumbling down. That’s gonna be like a rocket ship in reverse.”
But polling clearly shows that the squeeze is hitting voters where it hurts.
A Fox News poll released Wednesday found 61 percent said gas prices were a major problem for their families, while 62 percent said the same about groceries.
That could be disastrous for Republicans heading into the midterms, with voters already signaling that prices will play a major role in how they view the parties.
The Hill/Emerson poll showed that the economy topped the list of concerns, with 36 percent of Texans naming it as a key issue, ahead of immigration, education, healthcare, and threats to democracy.
Republican strategist Doug Heye summed up the pressure facing his party, which is expected to lose control of the House, and possibly the Senate.
“Republicans know that their back is against the wall,” Heye said on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
