Daily Kos84%
Second part of GOP’s midterm strategy is dumber than the first part 67%
By kos74%
7/1/2026, 4:01:00 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Appeal to Emotion, and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 44.7% saturation with 453 hits. Analysis detected 2,657 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,013 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 60.7% and a BS Rank of 67% (7,259 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 66.80% of the article peer group.
Back in May, Republicans telegraphed their midterm strategy, and it had nothing to do with affordability or competent governance.
Republicans did win the redistricting war thanks to the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, as well as the legal loss in Virginia that reversed an aggressive Democratic gerrymander.
That advantage is temporary.
Colorado, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia are expected to all redraw their congressional maps before 2028, likely wiping out much of today’s Republican edge.
In a neutral political environment, Republicans would probably net around 10 seats from this cycle’s redraws alone.
The second prong of the strategy was “America 250,” or America’s 250th anniversary.
Another Republican quoted in the NOTUS story argued, “We will make sure that people are aware of the fact that we are the party of patriotism and love of country, and the Democrats are just … not proud to be Americans.”
America 250 won’t save the GOP.
I mean, look what the marquee “Great American State Fair” has amounted to:
The final piece of the GOP’s midterm master plan was “a midterm convention at some point.”
And that point has now arrived.
“BIG NEWS!”
Trump proclaimed on Truth Social.
“For the first time ever, the Republican Party will hold a MIDTERM CONVENTION.
It will be in Dallas, Texas — One of my favorite places in the World.
It will be fantastic!
It has never been done before, and will be a truly Historic Event.
We are going to celebrate the GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK.”
Broadcast networks cover presidential conventions because they’re historic events involving the nomination of a presidential candidate, and because there’s a longstanding expectation that both parties receive comparable coverage.
This thing scheduled for Sept. 9-10, though?
Fox News will cover it wall to wall.
Everyone else will probably treat it the same way they’re treating the underwhelming 250-related festivities—with a brief segment before moving on.
There simply isn’t much reason for anyone outside the Republican base to tune in.
Which might actually be a shame.
We all know what this event will become: two straight days devoted to glorifying Trump.
Do Republicans really want to begin the post-Labor Day sprint to Election Day by reminding voters that every Republican candidate is tied to Trump?
Nearly 60% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance, according to data from The Economist and YouGov.
Those numbers are just as ugly in key Senate battlegrounds: Alaska (-15 points in net job approval), Georgia (-25 points), Iowa (-17 points), Maine (-25 points), Michigan (-21 points), Nebraska (-11 points), North Carolina (-19 points), Ohio (-20 points), and even Texas (-19 points).
In 2024, Trump won all of those states but Maine.
So yes, Republicans, please put the guy anchoring your party to the bottom of the ocean on television for two consecutive days.
But this convention isn’t merely a vanity project.
It’s a trap.
Trump promised attendees would celebrate the “GREAT AMERICAN COMEBACK,” highlighting what he called his “America First Agenda”: “NO TAX ON TIPS, NO TAX ON OVERTIME, NO TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY, STRONGER BORDERS, SAFEST EVER COMMUNITIES, LOWER COSTS AND REAL AFFORDABILITY, MORE JOBS, AMERICAN ENERGY DOMINANCE, AND SO MUCH MORE!
Oil Prices are dropping sharply, even as we Denuclearize Iran.”
There’s just one problem.
The list reads like a victory lap.
Voters, however, aren’t seeing any great American comeback.
If Americans actually believed costs were down, affordability had returned, communities were safer than ever, the border had been solved, and the economy was booming—if Americans believed any of that, Trump wouldn’t be approaching 60% disapproval and Republicans wouldn’t be staring at a brutal midterm environment.
Republicans already know this message doesn’t work.
Back in February, journalist Mark Halperin reported that Trump’s senior political operation had delivered a sobering midterm briefing to key Republicans, including Cabinet officials.
In short, voters were tired of bullshit: “Trying to argue about wages being up will not help; voters have to feel it,” they said, acknowledging that “taking credit for closing the border does not resonate much”—a remarkable admission that focusing on immigration wouldn’t bail them out.
At the meeting, Republican operative James Blair effectively admitted that Trump himself couldn’t be trusted to follow the campaign’s strategy.
“He acknowledged that Donald Trump will do what he wants to do, say what he wants to say, not be data driven,” Halperin reported.
“Everyone else has to stay on message and be driven by the data.”
In other words, Republicans were running two campaigns: one based on what their polling said voters needed to hear, and another built around whatever Trump felt like saying that day.
That’s how they ended up passing a landmark bipartisan housing bill, having the White House publicly hail it as “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history”—only to watch Trump abruptly refuse to sign it unless Congress first passed his voter-suppression bill.
That’s what makes this midterm convention such an astonishing strategic decision.
It is designed around the one politician Republicans privately admit won’t follow the polling, delivering the very message they privately admit voters aren’t buying.
And if anyone needed proof that Trump remains incapable of sticking to the script, his recent greatest hits include:
“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.
I don’t think about anybody.”
“I don’t want to drive housing prices down.
I want to drive housing prices up.”
“You know what I really love?
I love the inflation.”
So yes, Republicans, have your convention.
Spend millions of dollars that could otherwise be used attacking Democrats.
Pull vulnerable candidates off the campaign trail and make them stand beside Trump.
Force them to applaud as he boasts about accomplishments voters don’t believe they’ve experienced.
And when some candidates inevitably decide they’d rather be anywhere else—Maine Sen.
Susan Collins comes to mind—let Trump angrily denounce them as disloyal RINOs, creating yet another headache for candidates fighting uphill races.
For a party supposedly desperate to avoid a wave election, it’s a remarkably efficient way to help create one.
Speakers
3speakers22%attributed speech790writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageMark Halperin
48 attributed words22% of attributed speech93% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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