President Trump has announced that Republicans will have a midterm convention ahead of next year’s elections.
The Republicans are to do a Midterm Convention in order to show the great things we have done since the Presidential Election of 2024. Time and place to be determined. Stay tuned, it will be quite the Event, and very exciting! President DJT
This is not really a new idea. Although the Republican Party itself has never had a midterm convention before, the Democrat Party has had three of them, the last over forty years ago.
The notion of having a mid-term conference of grass-roots Democrats was born in the 1972 convention that nominated George McGovern — one of many actions taken during that period to “open up” the party to women, minorities, youths and others who were described as victims of past exclusion. Such conferences were held in 1974 and 1978 and the third was ordered for 1982.
Of these three events, only the 1982 midterm convention was held before the midterm elections.
The 1982 Democrat midterm convention was held in Philadelphia from June 25th to the 27th of 1982, with over 1100 delegates participating. Seven of the most prominent Democrat candidates thought to be running for the presidency in 1984, including former Vice President Walter Mondale and Sens. Gary Hart and Ted Kennedy, all spoke before the delegates. The Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill also addressed the crowd. There were three themes for this convention – 1) attacks on President Reagan’s handling of the country to elect Democrats in the 1982 House and Senate contests; 2) the drafting of a party platform that largely papered over major fault lines among the Democrat factions; and, perhaps most importantly, 3) a contest between the potential candidates for the Democrat nomination for the 1984 presidential election. The delegates also discussed and held workshops on major issues, passed resolutions, and held parties.
At the 1982 convention, the Democrats erected a huge podium banner which said “The Democrats: With Fairness to All.” This reflected their complaints about the “unfairness” of the Reagan administration budget and its tax cuts, and at Reagan’s “mismanagement of the economy.” They also blamed Reagan for: unemployment and interest rates; cutting Social Security; favoring the rich; and for his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. Future 1984 Democrat nominee Walter Mondale said Reagan had created “two Americas — one where the well-to-do get more and more, and one where the rest of us get less and less.” He also claimed that “(w)hat we see is a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy.” Other issues that were promoted by the Democrats were a freeze on nuclear weapons development; immediate arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union; complaints about Reagan’s desire to cut Medicare and Medicaid; demands for national health insurance; increased federal aid for education; protests about the effects that Reagan Administration economic policies had on women; and calls for Middle East peace.
Does any of this sound familiar?
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Strangely, the convention largely avoided advertising Democrat candidates for the Senate and House in 1982. The participants at the convention were either the traditional big government liberals or the “neoliberals” – what we would think of today as socially liberal, tech savvy, but less supportive of big government, moderate Democrats. Excluded, however, were the conservative Reagan Democrats, i.e., the socially conservative and small government Democrats, called the “Boll Weevils,” who had provided a substantial vote for Reagan in the House to implement his agenda.
The 1982 midterm Democrat conference achieved very little of substance, and in 1985, the Democrat leadership canceled the future midterm conventions because leading Democrats saw them as a waste of time, money, and energy, and because of the over-emphasis on potential presidential candidates rather than midterm congressional candidates.
Now, presumably in 2026, President Trump has directed the GOP to hold a midterm convention, and the Democrats are considering having one as well.
This midterm GOP convention is unlikely to be much like the 1982 Democrat midterm convention. With a sitting president who has no desire to appear as a lame duck, there won’t be much (open) talk about the 2028 Republican nominee. The GOP instead will do what the president wants – to focus on the Trump administration’s record, and what it has produced for the country. We can also expect there to be plenty of campaigning on the “80/20” wedge issues, including crime, illegal immigration, the trans issue, and others, where the Democrats can’t seem to stop taking the unpopular side. There may be a party platform, although these documents are usually rather pointless and can be easily demonized (e.g., Project 2025).
I hope that there is also a real effort by the Republican Party to advertise its 2026 candidates for the House and Senate. These are the candidates who really need exposure.
And with Donald Trump directing things, we can expect to see a few big surprises. But “We’ll (Just Have to) See What Happens.”
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