DALLAS — President Trump wrapped up the final night of the Republican midterm convention with an unusual get-out-the-vote appeal, urging thousands of supporters to lift their hands and promise they would cast ballots — then warning that failing to follow through could carry consequences beyond politics.
“I pledge to the greatest president in the history of the United States … I’m going to get my friends, my family, and we are going to vote on Nov. 3, or we are going to vote before that,” Trump instructed party loyalists.
“I don’t care if I’m registered or not. I’m going to try and cheat like hell, like they do,” he joked, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Once attendees enthusiastically repeated the pledge, Trump delivered the punchline: “You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell.”
The president’s closing-night remarks lasted under 30 minutes, a shorter appearance than his nearly two-hour address Wednesday, when he captivated supporters by proposing $5,000 payments to adult U.S. citizens if Republicans prevail.
“In 19 months, I’ve delivered on every single promise I’ve made,” Trump said in his final pitch to Republican voters, again touting the proposed $5,000 “Trump dividend” even as fiscal conservatives in Congress reacted with alarm to the idea.
“We took that dark age of America and turned it into the golden age of America,” he declared, pointing to a surging stock market, reduced prescription drug costs and expanded military spending as evidence of his record.
Trump also argued that his policies had transformed the United States into “the energy and military superpower of the world.”
Trump rattled off accomplishments including the near-elimination of illegal border crossings and ramming through Congress new tax breaks on overtime, tips and Social Security payments.
Trump convened his party’s first-ever midterm convention in a bid to reverse the well-established history of a president’s party losing seats and used the free publicity to pump swing-state and local Texas contenders.
If Democrats reclaim power, Trump said, they would “confiscate your wealth … abolish not tax on tips, no tax on overtime [and] destroy Texas oil and gas.”
Democrats would also “set loose criminals to rob, rape and kill like we had just two years ago,” Trump said.
Whether the convention meaningfully changes the election’s outcome is unclear, with some Trump allies privately expressing concern that the gathering could hurt centrists by tying regional races so closely to him.
Vice President JD Vance, who gave the night’s keynote address before Trump, received one of the strongest crowd reactions of the entire convention when he told a heckler waving a foreign flag to “get your ass over there.”
Vance, Trump’s heir apparent in 2028, also tackled head-on one of Republicans’ major vulnerabilities, the war with Iran, which has caused inflation and energy prices to increase.
He said the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated one year ago Thursday, strongly opposed foreign wars, but would not break with the Republican Party on that issue alone.
“ What I’m asking you to do is do what Charlie did. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater,” Vance said. “Don’t give the country over to a bunch of crazy people because you happen to disagree with us on a policy issue here or there.”
