"I think the Republicans are in much better shape than what a lot of these media polls are showing, and look, we still got a long way to go between now and Election Day," pollster Jim McLaughlin said.
Page A8From§Eachthe midnight edition — 31 August 2026
GOP trails in 8 battleground Senate races, plans a 'very hasty' nominating convention
As it ran on the front
Read these two in order, because the order's the whole joke. Polling aggregate comes out: Republicans trailing in eight battleground Senate races, two months before the election. Same week: Republicans are gearing up for what's being described as a 'very hasty' Trump-a-palooza convention in Texas. You're down in eight races and the plan is a party.
Now, I've watched enough of these to know what 'hasty' means when it's your own side using the word about your own convention. It means somebody looked at the map, looked at the calendar, and decided the fix isn't policy, it's a pep rally. You don't throw a hasty convention when you're up. You throw a hasty convention when the base needs something to be excited about besides the numbers.…
…(cont) This is the same move every time: when the receipts are bad, change the room, not the record. Nobody's proposing what flips those eight races. Nobody's running a check on why they're trailing. The answer, apparently, is a convention with a name attached to it, staged fast enough that anybody watching has to assume it's less about persuading anybody and more about making sure the cameras have something to point at that isn't a spreadsheet.
Here's the stakes part, plain: these are Senate seats. Whoever wins those eight races decides whether the next Congress can actually check anything the executive branch does for the following six years. That's not a pep rally issue. That's the ballgame. And the response to trailing in that ballgame, with real votes on the line, is a hasty party in Texas.
You can throw all the balloons you want. Balloons don't flip a Senate map. If the plan for eight losing races is a convention scheduled in a hurry, that's not a strategy, that's a distraction with a stage.
“Down in eight Senate races two months out and the answer is a hasty convention — that's not a comeback plan, that's a pep rally standing in for one.”
“A rapid convention schedule reflects enthusiasm, not urgency — the polling aggregate is one data point, and also wrong, and also not something we're worried about.”
The receipts
The Republican National Committee’s (RNC) first-of-its-kind midterm convention has been cloaked in mystery until a few weeks ago. Details are finally emerging about what’s expected to be a two-day pep rally to bolster hype and encourage…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.