“We’re going to have a good time listening to music,” Donald Trump told thousands of supporters in downtown Dallas before handing the mic to an opera singer, “because I’m getting a little bit tired of politics now.”

Millions of Americans seem tired of politics after a decade dominated by Trump. So the US president’s decision to close out this week’s first ever Republican midterm convention with a plea – treat November’s congressional elections as a referendum on Trump himself – was received by his Democratic opponents with glee.

They saw the president’s core pitch as a combination of begging and bribery. First he urged voters to “pretend that I’m on the ballot”. Then he promised $5,000 payouts to every US adult if Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives and Senate in November.

Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, told reporters on Thursday: “If Donald Trump wants to hold a convention saying this election is about him, I fully support his decision. He’s telling me to pretend that he is on the ballot – I want people to pretend that he is on the ballot.”

But with hundreds of members of Congress and candidates staying away from the convention, most seats in the upper tier remained empty both nights. Trump’s keynote speech drew a modest 2.5 million viewers on Fox News, ⁠according to ⁠Nielsen data. Some attendees expressed discontent over the cost of living and Iran war while starting to look beyond the president to potential successors in 2028.

With Trump’s approval rating at a historic low, it was far from certain that the two-day “Trump-a-palooza” will have the desired effect of galvanising the party’s base and recreating the turnout that powered his 2016 and 2024 presidential election victories.

Holding a convention in a midterm year was an attempt to make history in order to defy history. The party that holds the White House typically suffers midterm losses: George W Bush’s Republicans took a “thumping” in 2006, while Barack Obama’s Democrats endured a “shellacking” in 2010.

The omens this year are no less foreboding: the Decision Desk HQ website projects that Democrats are poised to capture the House of Representatives 229-206, with the Senate hanging on a knife-edge at 50-50.

The spectacle in Dallas was rapidly pulled together at Trump’s behest after the host committee raised $45m in three weeks. It had some familiar trappings, including tall state delegations on the convention floor, fiery speeches and a celebratory balloon drop at the end, but no nominations or formal business. And there was no doubt who was the star of the show.

Trump’s image was everywhere in the corridors of the American Airlines Center. Attendees wore clothes with phrases such as “Trump tribe”, “Trump has our back” and “Proud deplorable”. Speaker after speaker lavished him with effusive praise.

Among them was Robert Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, who recalled their meeting soon after Trump survived a shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania: “I discovered a self-effacing man of superior intelligence, of empathy and compassion, with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues in molecular detail. And most of all, a near reckless courage to challenge vested interests and official orthodoxies.”

But while the Trump personality cult was alive and well, another theme was just as prominent. Unable to point to falling grocery bills or peace in the Middle East, the convention leaned heavily into fear, painting a nightmarish portrait of what the US would look like with the Democrats back in charge.

Images of the influencer Hasan Piker and other leftwing figures loomed ominously on giant video screens. A narrator’s voice boomed: “Today’s extreme left hasn’t simply moved away from Republicans. It has moved away from Democrats in its own party. Far beyond the common sense of the American people. This is no longer simply Republican versus Democrat or conservative versus liberal. Today, the choice is unmistakable. Extreme versus mainstream.”

Numerous speeches sought to whip up a new red scare. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent warned that Democrats wanted to transform the US into a “socialist hellscape” while House Speaker Mike Johnson framed the midterms as a simple choice between “common sense and crazy”.

Many speakers emphasised their own Christian faith while stressing the godlessness of communism and conflating it with threats from outside America’s borders, at times invoking the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said: “We are witnessing a new and dangerous red-green alliance – communists and Islamists coming together and sweeping over the Democrat party. They are united because they share the same enemies. They hate Christians, they hate Jews, they hate capitalism, they hate the constitution, and they hate America!”

There were shouts in the arena of “He should be shot!” as Cruz singled out some leading progressives by name: “When people tell you who they are, believe them. When Hasan Piker says, America deserved 9/11, believe him. When Mamdani says he wants to seize the means of production, he means it. When Abdul El-Sayed says he has an ‘obligation’ to comply with Sharia law, he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to dismantle capitalism, he means this.”

On the convention floor, Republicans echoed Cruz’s apocalyptic framing. Pavel Sokolov, 33, vice-chair of the New Jersey Republican party, drew on his personal background to reinforce the point. “I was born in the former Soviet Union; my parents and I fled that exact rhetoric,” Sokolov said. “It always starts nice and friendly, saying everyone must pay their fair share. But it inevitably ends up the same. In the Soviet Union, ostensibly everyone was equal, yet somehow the party bosses ate caviar every day.”

Conversely, most speakers swerved past voters’ everyday concerns about the cost of living and Trump’s war of choice in Iran. Trump himself claimed that concerns about ‌inflation were exaggerated and the word “affordable” was “fake”. Interviews with more than a dozen attendees found staunch support for him – but with some reservations beneath the surface.

Gregorio Heise, 59, a disabled army veteran from Texas, described Trump’s second term as “friggin’ awesome”, explaining: “I prefer to pay $5 a gallon [of gas] and put my head on a pillow and wake up knowing this country is still here than watching it go boom with a nuke. No, thank you. I’m a vet and I didn’t serve this country to watch it go to crap.”

Joseph Ditto, a 50-year-old statistician from suburban Minneapolis wearing an elephant-patterned Republican tie, admitted his frustration with the administration’s foreign policy. “I’m not a fan of the war in Iran. I hope it’s over quickly,” he said. “I voted for the anti-war Trump, so that’s frustrating.”

Democrats, who held three midterm conventions in 1974, 1978 and 1982 with mixed results, have no plans for a rival event this time. But some travelled to Dallas to counter the Republican messaging.

Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a congresswoman from California, highlighted what she saw as the fundamental disconnect of Trump’s second term. “Last night, Donald Trump was talking about how he wanted to build a big ballroom like they have in China,” she said. “The average American family can’t afford groceries or gas, and he’s fantasising about a ballroom in the people’s house. This entire event is built around one man who likes to hear himself talk.”

To many political strategists, turning a midterm election into a direct referendum on an incumbent president whose national approval rating languishes in the low-to-mid 30s looks like a huge own goal. But Trump’s energetic performance on Wednesday night buoyed Republicans who believe he retains a unique ability to galvanise people who might not otherwise vote at all.

David Hopkins, a professor of political science at Boston College, said: “There’s been a lot of journalistic dunking on Trump saying that making the election more about him is an ego trip winning out over smart strategy. That’s not an unreasonable take but there’s another way to look at it. The worst-case scenario for Republicans is that Republican voters stay home.”

Hopkins pointed out that Trump commands a unique, low-propensity “Make America great again” (Maga) electorate that turns out passionately for him but frequently ignores down-ballot congressional races when his name is absent. “If they can’t get those people out, it looks like a real national wipeout.”

The midterm convention also offered an intriguing subplot: the question of who inherits the Maga movement when Trump, the 45th and 47th president, is gone.

Vice-President JD Vance was greeted by chants of “JD 48!” as he delivered Thursday night’s keynote address. He spoke at length about his family while describing Democrats as “the party that despises America and the people who built it”. When a protester waving a Mexican flag briefly interrupted his speech, Vance drew thunderous applause with a sharp put-down: “Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your ass over there. I’ll buy you the plane ticket.”

In the concourses, delegates were actively sizing up the potential 2028 field. While Vance commands a substantial lead in early polling among Republican primary voters, several other names – most notably secretary of state Marco Rubio and Florida governor Ron DeSantis – were frequently cited.

Heise said: “Marco Rubio is doing everything. He’s building on the foundations this country was created on in 1776.” Chris Daniel, 44, from Houston, who has been a delegate at every Republican convention since 2004, echoed that sentiment. “I prefer Marco Rubio over Vance if I had to pick one today. He has proven his ability to lead in any capacity.”

Rusat Ramgopal, 26, executive director of the Queens county Republican party in New York, envisioned a pragmatic resolution to avoid a damaging primary battle. “Instead of a divisive primary between Vance and Rubio, I think the two of them and the president will sit down in a room and decide the ticket,” he predicted. “It just depends on who is top of the ticket and who is vice president.”

Republicans declared the convention a triumph. Outside the arena, the verdict was rather less enthusiastic.

Veteran pollster John Zogby described the two-day gathering as an “act of desperation” that highlighted internal vulnerabilities rather than strength. “The president promised that the war in Iran would end by August, inflation would be down by August, fuel prices would be low again by August,” Zogby noted. “None of those have been achieved. We have moved from the politics of anger into the politics of disappointment.”