First-of-its-kind GOP midterm convention coming to Dallas in September, Paxton says
By Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune
June 16, 2026
Attorney General Ken Paxton, speaking Monday at a tele-town hall, said the GOP will have a pre-midterm convention in Dallas this September, bringing President Donald Trump to Texas for a high-profile event ahead of the November election.
The Republican National Committee has publicly discussed plans to host a first-of-its-kind gathering for a midterm election year and explored Dallas as a host site. The convention will gather GOP politicians and candidates months before the November election and place Texas — where Republican Paxton and Democrat James Talarico are locked in a competitive Senate race — at the center of the national conversation.
“I know that we are having the midterm convention in Dallas in September,” Paxton said, according to CNN. “I know that we anticipate [Trump] coming to that and speaking.”
The RNC, which has yet to officially announce the convention or its location, declined Tuesday to address Paxton’s comments. And the Paxton campaign declined to comment further on whether Paxton was referring to the RNC midterm convention and whether Dallas had been confirmed as the location.
The midterm convention will occur once primary season has concluded in all states but before early voting begins, according to a source familiar with the plans, and will be announced by Trump on Truth Social.
RNC representatives toured Dallas’ American Airlines Center in late February, the arena’s general manager told CBS News earlier this year.
Nationally, the GOP has struggled to mobilize the president’s coalition in years when Trump was not on the ballot, and leaders have described the midterm convention as an opportunity to parade the party’s stars onstage before voting begins.
RNC Chair Joe Gruters has referred to the convention as “Trump-a-palooza” — tying the candidates to the president, who was able to turn out legions of low-propensity voters in 2024 en route to the White House, but whose approval rating has since slipped deeply underwater.
Republicans hope to fire up the party’s base and essentially put Trump on the ballot, with the idea to engage lower-propensity voters. Candidates in tough or important races will be highlighted, the source familiar with the convention said, giving them a platform to address a national audience as races heat up.
A list of speakers has not been announced, but the presumed location in Texas would increase the prominence of the state’s GOP candidates up and down the ballot. Republicans are hoping to flip five U.S. House seats that the Legislature redrew to be more favorable to the GOP, and the convention could put a spotlight on the party’s recruits.
At the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Gov. Greg Abbott, Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican U.S. Reps. Monica De La Cruz of Edinburg, Wesley Hunt of Houston and Ronny Jackson of Amarillo gave speeches from the main stage. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, a former Democrat turned Republican, spoke at the 2024 convention as well.
The president’s party has historically struggled in midterm elections — Republicans lost dozens of House seats in the 2018 midterm during Trump’s first term.
Democrats discussed a potential midterm convention as well, but with far less cash on hand than the RNC, the Democratic National Committee decided against it.
Talarico, a state representative from Austin, and other statewide Democratic candidates will need strong turnout in blue Dallas County and an overperformance in suburbs throughout the Metroplex to flip Texas — and a midterm GOP convention centered around a president with lagging approval ratings could motivate Democrats to turn out as well.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.