Less than a week until party faithful gather in Dallas for the 2026 Republican midterm convention, the event’s organizers are still trying to offload tickets amid concerns about the price of admission to what is being called “Trumpalooza.”
A political operative familiar with RNC convention planning told the Washington Examiner that organizers held a call this week and told participants that tickets were still available. According to the source, the last-minute availability was notable given that the convention is set to begin Tuesday at the American Airlines Center, which can hold more than 21,000 people.
“When I brought up the point back in December, I said, ‘How in the heck are you going to get 16,000 people to come to a midterm convention with no notice?’” the operative said, comparing the lead time to the almost four years of preparation that normally go into a presidential election year convention.
“The planners had a call briefing us on stuff [Tuesday] and last Tuesday, and, at the end of the call, they said, ‘Oh, and by the way, if you know anybody who wants to come, we’ve got tickets,’” the operative added. “I’m like, ‘Are you kidding? This is what I told you would happen in December.’”
The Republican National Committee has assumed much of the responsibility for organizing the midterm convention. The hands-on approach by the RNC presents something of a break from the normal operating procedure for planning the party’s presidential nominating convention every four years, where much of the work is done by state parties.
The changeover has not been smooth, however. Questions have emerged over whether the RNC has generated sufficient grassroots enthusiasm for the convention, especially as even some high-profile, battleground candidates are not attending.
Sources told the Washington Examiner, for instance, that neither Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany nor Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who is seeking reelection this year, will be in Dallas.
RNC spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre pushed back on the convention having attendance issues, saying that President Donald Trump “is one of the greatest showmen in history, and we fully expect to have a spectacular showing in Dallas draw a massive viewership.”
There are also concerns about the high cost of tickets for attendance.
“We’re trying to make it as affordable as possible to the party faithful,” the political operative said. “Even if you’re passionate about this stuff, you’re asking people to take essentially a week off from work, Labor Day week, and then go to Dallas and spend, you know, $1,000, $2,000. So it makes sense that people are going, ‘I’m already working on a race back home in my congressional district, and I got doors to knock on and phone calls to make, money to raise.’”
An Ohio Republican county party chair told the Washington Examiner that their $7,000 ticket price for the convention was part of the reason they declined to attend.
“It seems to me, the package hotel and tickets was going to be about $7,000, and that’s a little more than I wanted to pay out of pocket,” the chair said.
In contrast, the 2024 Republican National Convention cost the chair approximately $3,000.
“And I was able to drive there from Ohio,” the chair added.
The RNC has sought to address the ticket problem through a range of initiatives, including launching a lottery for free tickets last month. Winners of the lottery were notified on Friday.
At the same time, most state Republican parties have been selling their tickets through a tiered system of pricing, though with different costs. Some state parties are charging $250,000 for high-level VIP access during the event. For instance, honorary delegate status for the Denton County Republican Party, outside of Dallas, costs $20,000.
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A former RNC member criticized the convention as a “grift by party committees and adjacent groups desperate to sell whatever access they still can to donors who haven’t already maxed out this cycle.”
“It also sets a dangerous precedent for the real conventions going forward, particularly with so many state parties broke,” the source told the Washington Examiner. “Will they try to monetize 2028 by selling delegate passes the way they sold access to this?”