Republicans blast offers of ‘free tickets’ to save Trump from Dallas convention embarrassment

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The Republican National Committee is giving seats away.

Two days before Donald Trump’s midterm convention opens in Dallas, Texas, the party that promised the largest such gathering in a decade has been running a public lottery for free tickets, dangling front-row seats and VIP treatment to whoever enters.

The RNC has found itself in a tricky spot after building the event around Trump, whose approval rating is the lowest of his political career. A number of Republicans have also decided to skip the convention rather than be seen on camera celebrating an unpopular president who could drag down their prospects of re-election.

The RNC has said it expects about 20,000 people at the American Airlines Center and that the convention will be bigger than the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That four-day convention that drew an estimated 50,000 delegates, donors, journalists and visitors to the city, and at which Trump accepted the nomination and unveiled JD Vance as his running mate.

But this time around, it appears the RNC isn’t taking any chances.

A text message sent to party donors as recently as last week encouraged them to ask for “FREE TICKETS,” while some GOP operatives were told last week that there are still seats available for the event. Donors who click on the text message link were entered into a lottery that would also bestow a front-row seat upon one lucky winner.

And for those willing to pay, $250,000 will get a donor a seat at a roundtable with Trump —and a commemorative photo if they want to shell out another $88,600.

For $20,000, donors get to be “honorary delegates” and receive a Texas shirt and cowboy hat.

But many of the higher-profile potential attendees have already made public plans to skip the entire thing, with some balking at the $25,000 cost of attending and others annoyed at the prospect of spending days away from the campaign trail for what will amount to a multi-day rally for someone who will never appear on a ballot again.

Representative Tom Barrett of Michigan, a first-term Republican defending a competitive seat, is not going. “I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention, but I can control where I’m at,” Barrett told Politico last week.

In an aerial view, the American Airlines Center is seen during preparations for the Republican National Committee (RNC) Midterm Convention on September 07, 2026 in Dallas, Texas. (Getty)

Senate Majority Leader John Thune does not appear on the published speaker list, though he is expected in Dallas for fundraisers. And even though President Trump will speak twice this week, First Lady Melania Trump is not on the speaker list.

The convention itself runs Wednesday and Thursday, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Central Time, with 109 speakers and programming items on the schedule released last week. Vance delivers Wednesday’s keynote. Trump is due on stage both evenings and closes the convention Thursday in the 8 p.m. hour.

“Over two action-packed days, we will take Americans through the defining issues of our Party’s agenda and what is at stake in November,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement accompanying the schedule. “Each hour will have its own theme, its own message, and its own voices.”

Trump has been promoting it on Truth Social as “the Greatest RALLY of them all,” one that will showcase “our Tremendous Victories and Success.”

“I’ll be speaking on night one, and hanging around for an earlier closing, and lots of music, on night two!!!” he wrote. “See you in Dallas.”

The location was chosen to help boost the prospects of scandal-ridden Texas’ Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, who according to recent polling is running roughly level with Democrat James Talarico, a state representative from Austin.

Though Trump carried Texas by roughly 14 points in 2024 and no Democrat has won a statewide election there since 1994, Paxton remains vulnerable and could be a casualty of his own weaknesses and Trump’s flagging popularity.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll put Trump’s approval at 33 percent in a survey of 1,167 adults taken August 28-31, the lowest reading of his presidency in that poll’s history.

A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey taken August 21-26 had him at 32 percent against 64 percent disapproval, and found approval among Republicans had fallen from 89 percent in April 2025 to 75.

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