The gathering, which has come to be called Trump-a-palooza by Republicans and Democrats alike, will place the president and his policies at the center of Republicans’ midterm messaging. (Follow the reporting from my colleagues on the ground in Dallas here.)
It’s not clear whether this will help Republicans whose battleground races could determine control of Congress — and it’s not clear, either, how much Trump cares whether or not it does.
As the confab kicks off in Dallas, I asked my colleague Maggie Haberman, a White House reporter and an expert on the president, to tell us what she knows about Trump’s midterm approach. Here’s our conversation:
In a midterm year, a president often travels the country to help his party. Trump has stayed pretty close to Washington, although you’ve reported that that’s about to change. How much is he thinking about the midterms?
He’s been spending a lot of time on his legacy projects for himself — not legislation, but the triumphal arch, the ballroom on the White House complex, his goldification of the Oval Office and other parts of the West Wing.