Dallas, Texas – The Republican midterm convention has represented a gambit for the party: centring US President Donald Trump in the final stretch of the midterm elections, even as the first two years of his second term have cast a polarising political shadow.
That has been particularly true when it comes to the war on Iran, which Trump launched alongside Israel on February 28, and the knock-on effects on affordability in the United States, a key issue for many voters.
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As Trump prepared to deliver a keynote address on Wednesday in Dallas, prices for Brent Crude, the global benchmark, rose above $100 a barrel for the first time since July, a reminder of the conflict’s continued fallout for global markets.
Nevertheless, supporters who spoke to Al Jazeera still saw the president as the man to rally Americans to vote Republican in November, as the party fights to hold onto control of the House of Representatives and Senate.
But some voiced concern – or confusion – over the impact of the war.
“This really is a Trump-a-palooza, as people have been saying,” said Carter Eisinger, a 27-year-old electrician who travelled from Fargo, North Dakota.
“I think some people say that in a derogatory way, but I think it’s very much a complimentary phrase,” he added. “The reality of it is we are in a Trump Republican Party.”
Still, Eisinger struggled to see how the war fit into Trump’s “America First” vision.
“In my opinion, I don’t really see the connection of how a war in Iran helps us here in the country,” he said. “If the Iran war is justified, I’m willing to pay the gas prices, but I haven’t seen that justification.”
He felt a similar confusion about the close relationship between the US and Israel.
“At the end of the day, I’m going to come right back to whatever is best for families, young people, anyone in America,” he said. “If it’s helping Israel in a way that helps us, then great… but it needs to help us first.”
Others were more charitable towards Trump’s approach to the Middle East, even if they saw the war on Iran as a misstep.
Bijay Dixit, a 59-year-old photographer from Houston, Texas, gave Trump high marks on his approach to immigration. He also believed Republicans were the party to steward the economy in the years ahead.
But on Iran, he said there had been a “miscalculation”, even if he agreed with the Trump administration’s position that the war was ultimately a necessary response to the totality of Iran’s actions in the 47 years since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
“Iran needed to be stopped at some point,” he said. “When I say miscalculation, what I mean is underestimation of the capacity of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].”
Helen Vennett, a 65-year-old small business owner from Maryland and the chairman of her county’s Republican Party, likened the convention to a high-school pep rally.
“All of us need to have cheerleaders in our life… It just gets you fired up again. You kind of need to know that you’re not alone, that there are believers,” she added.
But while she said she broadly supported the Trump administration’s justification for the war, she acknowledged the potential political fallout.
“It’s a tough one,” she said.
Polls have regularly suggested widespread disapproval among US citizens of the war on Iran, with independents in particular expressing disapproval. Many, in turn, rank affordability as their top issue heading into the midterm vote.
A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll suggested that only a quarter of Americans think the war is worthwhile.
For its part, the Trump administration has downplayed the prospect of ending the war, focusing instead on efforts to open shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz, over which Iran continues to assert its influence.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday as he departed for the convention, Trump sought to temper expectations that the war would end before November’s pivotal vote.
“I think it’s going to take a little bit longer than the midterm,” he said, accusing Iran of intentionally holding out until November.
“They’re desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapons,” he said.
He predicted the war would end swiftly after the final votes have been cast.
“They can’t hold out any longer,” he said.
John Russell, 55, from Rockford, Illinois, who regularly travels to Trump rallies as part of the “Front Row Joe’s” group, said he believed voters would still view the first two years of Trump’s second term as a net positive.
“It’s been a small bump with the gas going up,” he told Al Jazeera from the convention.
“But it had to be done. We can’t allow [Iran] to have a nuclear bomb,” he said, referring to one of the administration’s main justifications for the war.
Tehran has long denied seeking a nuclear weapon, with military analysts generally agreeing that destroying its nuclear programme would require a major military escalation, involving boots on the ground.
Russell predicted that the Republican Party’s bet would pay off at the polls.
“It’s going to fire up the base,” he said of the convention. “It’s going to switch some independents to vote for the Trump-backed candidates, and they will win.”
