How Trump created a bizarre and risky midterm scenario for the GOP

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America no longer seems to believe that he, alone, can fix it.

At his 2016 convention, Donald Trump billed himself as the unique force who could end America’s troubles.

A decade later, at a midterm Republican pseudo-convention on Wednesday night, he sweetened the offer, with a pitchman’s promise of a $5,000 jackpot for every voter .

But polls reflect a wide gap between the president’s pledges and how voters view his performance. He’s therefore taking a huge risk by making the midterm elections all about himself.

“Let us finish the job we began with the greatest two years in the history of the presidency,” he said onstage in Texas.

But there isn’t much ticked off from the updated fix-it list unveiled in Trump’s second inaugural address , in 2025, when he promised to “rapidly bring down costs and prices” and that his new term would be remembered by “the wars we never get into.”

Americans are still angry about the prices of food, housing and healthcare. Gasoline costs are spiking because of a war in Iran he’s claimed multiple times to have won, but that now he says won’t end until after the November 3 midterms .

Hours after Trump made his midterm case in Dallas, average gas prices shot up to $4.28, according to AAA — the highest level since June 2.

If Trump won a mandate on the economy and national security in 2024, he’s now close to squandering it.

This created a bizarre core campaign dynamic — which Trump cemented Wednesday night.

The not particularly trusted out-of-power party is desperate to divert attention from its own liabilities toward the unpopular record of the president. And, amazingly, the deeply disliked incumbent is doing all he can to help them.

“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” Trump said Wednesday night.

Democrats won’t need to be asked twice to tell voters about a president with an approval rating in the 30s who is underwater in polls on almost every major issue.

Only this president would dare to hold a two-day “Trumpapalooza” with himself as keynote speaker on both nights.

After Trump on Wednesday blasted Democrats as radical far-left socialists and communists, GOP strategists might prefer he now step back to allow candidates to localize their races and try to disqualify their individual opponents.

But he’s determined to be the issue in every ZIP code.

“I am going to visit,” he said Wednesday, previewing a relentless tour of election hotspots.

Of course, anyone who thought the president might take a back seat must have slept through the last decade.

The 2026 election was always going to be all about Trump. Love him or hate him, almost everything in US and global politics has revolved around him since he descended his golden escalator in summer 2015.

Trump won two presidential elections because — not in spite — of the fact that he made it all about himself. His outsider persona, self-created image as the ultimate winner, and often-coarse manner rewrote the rules of politics. And he listened to economic angst of citizens who felt disenfranchised and disrespected by a globalized economy and leaders they saw as contemptuous elites.

Now that the president seems to care less about such matters, his hunger for the spotlight is making it almost comically easy for Democrats to make the case against the GOP.

“Donald Trump is hoping that a flashy primetime event will make you forget that, well, his trade war is killing costs for families at the grocery store, his war in Iran is killing ranchers and farmers and their way of life, and his war on people — on the working people, the working families of this country — are raising the costs of healthcare and housing,” Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said in Texas on Wednesday.

These stark comparisons explain why some vulnerable Republicans have stayed away from Trump’s Texas party — although many candidates from swing House races and key Senate contests are there.

It may not make much difference either way.

After a decade of Trump’s dominance over a Republican Party he transformed, there is no non-Trump platform for candidates to run on. And he’s already driven out most MAGA heretics.

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But the president could be doing more to help his own side.

Some conservatives are frustrated the billionaire president hasn’t shown more empathy to Americans who view his economic “golden age” as a mirage. It’s not a great look that as he piles up personal wealth in office, he’s mocking the key election issue of affordability.

All presidents lose touch after a few years in the West Wing. And Trump has made that cage more gilded than ever with his taste for gold trinkets and marble legacy projects.

Trump on Wednesday argued he’d slashed crime, stopped illegal immigration, crushed the fentanyl trade, enriched Americans with tax cuts and lowered healthcare costs. There’s some truth in this — although his methods may be driving away more moderate voters. And his claim to have rapidly cut prices is not accurate.

But has he lost his political touch?

His refusal to understand public fury — across party lines — over AI data centers seems like the kind of issue the 2016 version of Trump might intuit spells political danger.

It’s usually a losing strategy when politicians try to talk voters out the reality of their daily lives.

In this sense, his $5000 “dividend” seems more like an attempt to distract than to highlight his own success. (The payment, which Trump promised to every American adult if Republicans retain their House and Senate majorities in November, would probably struggle to make it through Congress. It would also likely add $1 trillion or more to the national debt.)

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Trump’s $5,000 checks would solve a problem that doesn’t exist – and create a new one

New CNN polling from the tight Maine and Michigan Senate races — which could decide who runs the chamber next year — makes the point. About two-thirds of likely voters in each state disapprove of Trump’s performance, and voters who are angry or dissatisfied far outnumber those who are satisfied and enthusiastic. The economy and cost of living are easily the top issue in each state. When asked the classic question that can doom incumbents, voters say by a more than 2:1 margin that they are financially worse off than they were two years ago.

Other polling proves that voters unequivocally dislike what Trump sees as his triumphs. They hate his tariffs and his war in Iran, and while he was partly elected over a promise to secure the southern border, he’s driven away many independents with his Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns on undocumented migrants.

But it’s not clear the president really cares about what irks persuadable voters.

His social media feed in recent days — a window into his off-script preoccupations — features a bizarre hinterland of topics that don’t include the price of groceries.

He is fixated on changing the names of lakes and oceans on maps. He claimed, “The Moon is Ours” and unveiled an idea for the dress uniform for his Space Force command that had rather dark historic echoes. His grand building projects similarly speak of a presidency focused on building a personal legacy, rather than addressing the economic problems that plague Americans.

But there’s one reason hogging the limelight that may make some sense.

Trump has historically reached voters other politicians haven’t, and shattered the Democrats’ core coalition among the white working class in Rust Belt states.

Can he conjure up the magic by posing one last time as the scourge of elites, the traditional media, and the social and cultural shifts that his base hates?

It might not save the GOP’s hold on one or both chambers, but perhaps it may mitigate their losses.

The Republican Party made its choice long ago. It rode to power on Trump’s movement and cannot credibly sever itself from him now.

“In actuality I really am running. We don’t really know it, but we are. I mean, we’re running together,” he said Wednesday night.

The only path is still the same: All Trump, all the time.

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美国似乎不再相信仅凭他一人之力就能解决这个问题。

在2016年的党代会上，唐纳德·特朗普把自己标榜为能够结束美国困境的唯一力量。

十年后，在周三晚上的共和党中期选举伪大会上，他加大了力度，以推销员的承诺向每位选民提供 5000 美元的奖金。

但民调显示，总统的承诺与选民对其表现的看法之间存在巨大差距。因此，他将中期选举完全变成他个人的竞选活动，这无疑是在冒巨大的风险。

“让我们完成我们从总统历史上最伟大的两年开始的工作，”他在德克萨斯州的舞台上说道。

但特朗普在 2025 年第二次就职演说中公布的更新版整改清单中，并没有完成多少。当时他承诺“迅速降低成本和价格”，并表示他的新任期将因“我们从未卷入的战争”而被人们铭记。

美国民众仍然对食品、住房和医疗价格感到愤怒。由于伊朗战争，汽油价格飙升。特朗普曾多次声称自己赢得了这场战争，但现在他又说这场战争要到11月3日中期选举之后才会结束。

据美国汽车协会 (AAA) 称，在特朗普于达拉斯发表中期选举演讲几个小时后，平均汽油价格飙升至每加仑 4.28 美元，达到 6 月 2 日以来的最高水平。

如果特朗普在2024年赢得了经济和国家安全方面的民意授权，那么他现在正接近挥霍掉这份授权。

这造成了一种奇特的竞选核心动态——特朗普在周三晚上巩固了这种动态。

这个原本就不太受信任的在野党急于转移公众对其自身问题的注意力，转而抨击总统不得人心的政绩。而令人惊讶的是，这位极不受欢迎的现任总统竟然竭尽所能地帮助他们。

“我请求你们假装我的名字出现在选票上，”特朗普周三晚上说道。

民主党人无需被反复提醒，就会告诉选民，这位总统的支持率只有30%多，而且在几乎所有重大问题上的民调支持率都低于对手。

只有这位总统才敢举办为期两天的“特朗普狂欢节”，并亲自担任两晚的主题演讲嘉宾。

周三，特朗普抨击民主党人是激进的极左社会主义者和共产主义者，共和党策略师可能更希望他现在退居幕后，让候选人将竞选活动本地化，并试图取消各自对手的资格。

但他决心要成为每个邮政编码区域的问题人物。

“我打算去走访，”他周三说道，预告了一场对选举热点地区的密集访问。

当然，任何认为总统可能会退居幕后的人，肯定在过去十年里睡着了。

2026年的选举注定要围绕特朗普展开。无论你喜欢他还是讨厌他，自从他2015年夏天走下那条金色扶梯以来，美国乃至全球政治几乎都围绕着他运转。

特朗普之所以能赢得两届总统大选，恰恰是因为——而非尽管——他将一切都围绕着自己展开。他局外人的形象、把自己塑造成最终赢家的形象，以及他常常粗鲁的言行举止，改写了政治规则。他倾听了民众的经济焦虑，这些民众感到自己被全球化经济和他们眼中傲慢的精英领导人剥夺了权利和尊严。

现在总统似乎不太关心这类事情了，他对聚光灯的渴望反而让民主党人更容易地抨击共和党，这简直滑稽可笑。

“唐纳德·特朗普希望一场华丽的黄金时段活动能让你忘记，他的贸易战正在推高家庭的杂货店购物成本，他对伊朗的战争正在摧毁牧场主和农民及其生活方式，他对人民——对这个国家的劳动人民和工薪家庭——发动的战争正在推高医疗保健和住房成本，”伊利诺伊州民主党州长JB·普里茨克周三在德克萨斯州表示。

这些鲜明的对比解释了为什么一些处境危险的共和党人一直远离特朗普的德克萨斯州共和党——尽管许多摇摆不定的众议院席位候选人和关键的参议院席位候选人都加入了该党。

两种方法可能都不会有太大区别。

在特朗普对共和党长达十年的统治下，共和党发生了翻天覆地的变化，如今，除了特朗普之外，没有任何候选人可以提出其他竞选纲领。而且，他已经驱逐了大部分“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）的异端分子。

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但总统本可以做更多的事情来帮助他自己的阵营。

一些保守派人士感到失望，这位亿万富翁总统未能对那些认为他所宣称的经济“黄金时代”不过是海市蜃楼的美国民众表现出更多同情心。他一边在任期间积累个人财富，一边又嘲讽“生活成本”这一关键的选举议题，这实在有失体面。

所有总统在白宫西翼待上几年后都会与民众脱节。而特朗普则用他对金饰和宏伟建筑的嗜好，让这个牢笼比以往任何时候都更加金碧辉煌。

特朗普周三辩称，他大幅降低了犯罪率，阻止了非法移民，打击了芬太尼交易，通过减税让美国人受益，并降低了医疗保健成本。这其中有些道理——尽管他的做法可能正在疏远更多温和派选民。而且，他声称迅速降低了物价的说法并不准确。

但他是否已经失去了政治手腕？

他对公众（跨越党派界限）对人工智能数据中心的愤怒表示无法理解，而这种愤怒似乎是 2016 年的特朗普可能会预感到的政治危险。

政客试图用言语说服选民忽视他们日常生活中的现实，这通常是一种失败的策略。

从这个意义上讲，他承诺的5000美元“分红”与其说是为了彰显自己的成功，不如说是为了转移人们的注意力。（特朗普承诺，如果共和党在11月保住参众两院多数席位，就向每位美国成年人发放这笔款项，但这项法案很可能难以在国会获得通过。此外，它还可能使国家债务增加1万亿美元甚至更多。）

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

特朗普发放的5000美元支票会解决一个根本不存在的问题，而且还会制造一个新的问题。

CNN最新民调显示，在竞争激烈的缅因州和密歇根州参议院选举中——这两场选举的结果可能决定明年参议院的控制权——选民们的感受印证了这一点。在这两个州，大约三分之二的潜在选民对特朗普的表现表示不满，愤怒或不满的选民人数远远超过满意和热情的选民。经济和生活成本无疑是这两个州选民最关心的问题。当被问及那个可能让现任议员下台的经典问题时，超过2比1的选民表示，他们的经济状况比两年前更糟。

其他民调也证实，选民们明确表示反感特朗普眼中的“胜利”。他们憎恨他的关税政策和伊朗战争，尽管他当初当选的部分原因是承诺加强南部边境安全，但他通过移民和海关执法局严厉打击非法移民的做法，却疏远了许多独立选民。

但总统是否真的在乎那些容易被说服的选民的感受，这一点尚不清楚。

他最近几天的社交媒体动态——一个展现他私下里关注点的窗口——展现了一个奇特的领域，其中并不包括食品杂货的价格。

他热衷于更改地图上湖泊和海洋的名称。他宣称“月球是我们的”，并公布了一项太空部队司令部制服的设计方案，该方案带有相当黑暗的历史回响。他宏伟的建筑项目也同样表明，他的总统任期专注于打造个人政治遗产，而非解决困扰美国人的经济问题。

但抢尽风头或许有一个合理的理由。

特朗普历史上赢得了其他政治家未能赢得的选民的支持，并打破了民主党在“铁锈地带”各州白人工薪阶层中的核心联盟。

他能否最后一次扮演精英阶层、传统媒体以及他的支持者所憎恶的社会和文化变革的克星，从而再次创造奇迹？

这或许无法保住共和党对参众两院的控制权，但或许可以减轻他们的损失。

共和党很久以前就做出了选择。它凭借特朗普的运动上台执政，现在无法令人信服地与他划清界限。

“实际上，我真的在跑步。我们可能自己都没意识到，但我们确实在跑步。我的意思是，我们在一起跑步，”他周三晚上说道。

唯一的出路依然不变：那就是永远支持特朗普。