Republicans are gathering in Dallas, Texas, ahead of their first-ever midterm convention that kicks off Wednesday. CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe reports.
Page A2From§Eachthe supper edition — 8 September 2026
Trump headlines both nights of first GOP midterm convention his most endangered candidates skip.
As it ran on the front
Dallas hosts the Republican Party's first-ever midterm convention this week, a two-night showcase built around one name on the marquee: Donald Trump, speaking Wednesday and Thursday, with JD Vance delivering Thursday's keynote, according to Fox News's advance schedule. The date being watched from outside the hall, though, is Aug. 27, when the Washington Examiner reported that former New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu, now the Republican Senate front-runner in his old state, had no plans to attend. Sununu is running against another former senator, Scott Brown, and at the time reporters treated his absence as one data point, not a trend.
Four days later, it looked like the start of one. On Aug. 31, the Washington Examiner reported that Sen. Susan Collins of Maine would also skip Dallas, calling her one of "a growing number of battleground Republican candidates" staying away. A source familiar with the situation told the paper it was simply Collins's long-standing practice to skip conventions — an explanation that covers her attendance record but not the company she was suddenly keeping on the sideline.…
…(cont) By Sept. 3, The Hill had stopped treating the absences as individual scheduling quirks. Its report that day said "some candidates and lawmakers" were deciding to skip the gathering altogether — a softer count than the Examiner's, but tied, the paper noted, to a Trump polling slide the party is watching ahead of a midterm in which it risks losing the House.
Two days after that, Trump moved himself onto Night One. On Sept. 5, he posted on Truth Social that he'd be speaking the first night as well as the second, promising "the Greatest RALLY of them all" and "an earlier closing, and lots of music." The schedule change added Trump; it did not add back the candidates who had already found somewhere else to be. By this week, CBS News and the New York Times were both running pieces on which Senate candidates were choosing home-district campaigning over Dallas, describing it as a real dilemma for Republicans in tight races — appear with Trump, or campaign where the votes actually are.
The convention still opens Wednesday, still runs two nights, still has its headliner booked for both of them. What it does not have, filling in around him, is agreement from the party's own most vulnerable candidates that the room in Dallas is where they need to be seen this week.
“They threw the party's first-ever midterm convention and put Trump on stage two nights running, and the people actually on the ballot in tight races found reasons to be somewhere else — Sununu in August, Collins by the end of it, and the wire counting more before the week was out. When your own front-runners won't stand next to you on camera, that's a poll number wearing a suit, not a scheduling conflict. Watch which senators show up in their home districts instead of Dallas this week — that's the real map of the race.”
“This is smart politics — Trump draws the cameras, and letting your strongest candidates campaign at home instead of in a ballroom is good strategy, not weakness. Sure, Sununu's skipping it, that's one race, and Collins is too, so that's — two, and the Examiner already had her filed under a growing number back in August, and there's — I should probably stop before I start naming the rest of them.”
The receipts
President Trump and top GOP leaders are gathering in Dallas for a midterm convention, though some Republicans in competitive races are opting to skip it and campaign in their home districts or states.
Trump headlines both nights of the RNC's first-ever GOP midterm convention in Dallas, with JD Vance delivering the Thursday keynote speech.
Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
For G.O.P. candidates in the most competitive races, deciding whether to appear with President Trump can be tricky. Some are going, while others are staying away.
· New Hampshire Senate GOP front-runner to skip midterm election convention from the morgue, 27 Aug 2026
· Susan Collins to skip Republican midterm convention from the morgue, 31 Aug 2026
· Some Republicans are planning to skip Trump’s GOP convention from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
· Trump shakes up RNC midterm convention schedule, says he'll speak on night one from the morgue, 5 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.