"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 A2From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 31 August 2026
GOP trailing in 8 battleground Senate races preps 'very hasty' Trump-a-palooza convention in Texas
As it ran on the front
Eight battleground Senate races, and the GOP is behind in all eight, two months out. That's not a margin-of-error blip in one state; that's the same result showing up in every state pollsters are bothering to poll. When a number repeats eight times in a row, you stop calling it noise and start calling it a signal.
So naturally, the response from Republican leadership is to throw a party. Not a strategy session, not a donor emergency call — a convention. In Texas. Described, by their own people, as very hasty, organized under the name Trump-a-palooza, which is the kind of name you give an event when the plan is vibes, not math.…
…(cont) Here's the thing about a hasty convention two months before an election you're losing badly: it isn't for the voters. Voters don't sit in on party infrastructure meetings. A hasty convention is for the base, for the cameras, for the donor class watching to see whether the operation still projects strength, because strength is the product being sold here, not a health care plan, not an answer for why eight states in a row have said no so far.
This is the trick, and it isn't a new one: when the numbers are bad, you don't fix the numbers, you throw a bigger flag. You call it a palooza. You put the man's name on the banner twice the size of the ticket price. The bet is that enough noise drowns out the arithmetic, that a stage and a spotlight photograph better than a polling memo, and that by the time anybody checks the receipts, the receipts will be old news.
But the receipts don't go anywhere. Eight races. Two months. A party thrown in a hurry by the side that's currently losing, loud enough that nobody's supposed to ask why it's happening now instead of later, when — if the polling turned around on its own — there'd actually be something worth celebrating.
The guy at the end of the bar has seen this movie before. You don't rent the ballroom because you're winning. You rent it because you need everybody in the room, including yourself, to stop looking at the scoreboard for a night. Eight races. Two months. Watch the ballroom, not the banner, and keep counting.
“You don't book a convention hall when you're up eight points, you book it when you need something loud enough to drown out the scoreboard. Eight races down, two months out, and the answer is a banner with his name on it twice the size of the ticket price.”
“This is a party thrown ready for victory, plain and simple, the hasty timeline just reflects enthusiasm — well, it reflects something, scheduling maybe, let's just go with scheduling.”
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.