Inside the G.O.P.’s Trumpapalooza

Marianna Sotomayor (0:01)

We know that Trump's favorabilities are so incredibly low. And that's what Republicans privately point out. Like, they can't be bear hugging him anymore. Those members will have to decide whether it's worthy for them to show up and give a speech before the president does, but that could be a headache.

Peter Hamby (0:20)

Welcome to The Powers That Be Daily, Puck's podcast focused on the intersection of Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley and Hollywood, and the players who run it all. I'm Peter Hamby. It's Thursday, September 10th. Today, I'm joined by Marianna Sotomayor, who is in Texas reporting from the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, as Republicans try to stir up excitement with their party's base, heading into a midterm election with polls showing the party in dire straits. But Donald Trump's super PACs have finally started to spend money on competitive races, and Trump himself is in Dallas promising to help GOP candidates, at least the ones willing to appear with him at the convention. We'll discuss all that and much more on today's episode of The Powers That Be.

Happy Thursday, everybody, and welcome to The Powers That Be. I'm joined today by my colleague, Marianna Sotomayor, who is reporting from Dallas at Donald Trump's very special midterm convention. As Republicans try to hold on to the House and the Senate. It's looking tough, but they started to deploy money recently. Marianna, Trump's super PAC, a super PAC created from his super PAC, started deploying millions of dollars in Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, etc. So Republicans on the Senate side have been wanting that. On the House side, we should mention, I think Nate Silver's model has Democrats with an 83% chance to win back the House. But that also means, according to his model, the Republicans still have like a 15, 17% chance to keep the House.

I think that is the main theme of the midterm convention, you tell me. But there are, I think a big reason for that is that there's so many fewer competitive seats with all of the gerrymandering and redistricting fights that have been happening. Beyond that, just general polarization. Are Republicans feeling okay or do they feel doomed?

Marianna Sotomayor (2:32)

It depends on who you ask. Really, all the Republicans who are here very much want to promote optimism, positivity. But they do realize that they are past that Labor Day marker, which when I would talk to Republicans as the year went on, they would always say, okay, number of things have to be better before Labor Day 1 Hopefully, we're not still involved with Iraq. Hopefully, gas prices are down. Hopefully, prices generally are down. And as we know, none of those things are true. So that is where you hear the panic from lawmakers. I've heard a lot more of that in the last couple of weeks. And there's not that many lawmakers who are here. Many of them, including more vulnerable incumbents, are back home campaigning, spending the week doing that. Instead of being at this convention, which, by the way, you could hear a lot of the cheering. And this is something that's gonna go on for the next two days. If you are walking around, like just like the corridors of this arena, convention coordinators really put in a lot of time to make sure that any open space on the walls, you could just fill it with a photo of Donald Trump. So as much as this is supposed to be about the midterms and uniting Republicans, making sure there's voter enthusiasm for a lot of congressional lawmakers, this really is Trump-calusa.

He's making it that as well. And since we have started chatting, there hasn't been too many hours that have gone on.

The arena is not that full. I hate to be that person who says, oh my gosh, it's not going to be full. It could get full in a couple of hours. But these are really just party loyalists who are here, a lot of donors. And that's been a big thing for the lawmakers who are here. They've been meeting with a lot of donors, want to fundraise. Like you said, the Republicans do have a money advantage and Democrats are actually the ones freaking out. Leigh Ann, our great colleague, had a good piece this week noting the fact that Democrats privately are already saying, I don't know if we have enough money to compete over the next two months on the airwaves, especially as all this money is coming in from Trump's orbit, which Republicans have been praying for for a long time.

Peter Hamby (4:44)

Oh, totally. They've been asking for it, Marianna. Trump's mysterious new super PAC, No Going Back PAC Inc., which is financially backed by MAGA Inc. The New York Times sort of described this. The reason they called it that and filed so late is they don't have to disclose their donors until October. So it's basically a dark money group. But you know, they dropped almost $50 million in ad reservations to come. That would be extremely helpful. And look, thinking back to a lot of midterms in the Trump era, polls kind of showed Democrats doing better than they actually performed on election day. And so I'm not saying John Ossoff is going to lose. But if there's a jump ball race in New Hampshire or Michigan or Texas, the historical pattern show in the Trump years, Republicans kind of tend to show up. Democrats certainly do too. But Republicans show up in a way that polls have kind of missed. And certainly this money will help.