First Lady Melania Trump is staying away from Dallas, where the Republican National Committee (RNC) stages its first-ever midterm convention on September 9 and 10, 2026. Her husband, President Donald Trump, is booked both evenings at the American Airlines Center, and the keynote address falls to him on the second night; Vice President JD Vance takes the opening night. A White House official confirmed the first lady’s plans on Thursday, September 3, to the Washington Examiner.
Neither the first lady nor her office has issued an attributable announcement about the decision. The RNC’s formal call for the convention prohibits resolutions, elections or any other official business.
The committee has sold the two nights as a launchpad for the November 3 elections. RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said every hour would carry its own theme, message and voices, and that the program would lay out for Americans what the party stands for and what is at stake in November. Planners have scheduled 109 items and speakers across the two nights, by the committee’s count.
Dozens of Republicans Also Skipping
Dozens of Republicans are skipping the event as well, so the first lady is hardly alone in passing. Politico interviewed roughly 70 Republican candidates and members, and at least 45 GOP lawmakers said they will not attend. The reasons ran from prior commitments — a wedding, campus visits with teenage daughters, a dove hunt — to a belief that the days are better spent campaigning at home. Others balked at the $25,000 entrance fee.
“I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention, but I can control where I’m at, what I’m doing,” Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) told the outlet.
Politico heard the same from Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), each of whom said they would not be there; Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) was also reported to be out. All three are running for reelection. Skipping as well are Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). One House Republican dismissed the event to Politico as “a waste of time” and “a mess,” and that lawmaker argued that independent voters are neither attending nor watching.
The opposite tack has come from House Speaker Mike Johnson. He said he has been promoting the convention everywhere, that his colleagues must each make their own decision, and he predicted that those who do come will have a great time.
RNC national press secretary Natalie Baldassarre told Politico that interest in attending and participating had been “incredible,” and she said the convention would provide momentum to expand Republican majorities in November.
Steep Price Tags and Bad Timing
Proximity to the president in Dallas comes at a premium: a reported $88,600 buys a photo opportunity, and $250,000 buys a spot at roundtable appearances; donors can reach Vance for considerably less. Delegate status has run as high as $20,000, a price set by the party for an event that has picked up the nickname “Trump-a-Palooza.”
The two nights are expected to draw about 20,000 people to the American Airlines Center and to cost the city of Dallas more than $2 million in public-safety and logistical expenses. Reimbursement arrangements remain unresolved as of the city’s latest reported memo.
The calendar is a problem, too. The opening two games of the National Football League (NFL) season fall on the same evenings, and the nation observes the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks one day after the convention closes. The original booking put Trump onstage for a single night; he added himself to both, and a party official told Reuters that he wanted to set the tone for the entire convention.
MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire argued on “Morning Joe” that Trump would lose the viewership he was after because of the scheduling conflict. Maggie Haberman of the New York Times concurred; she noted that some in the president’s orbit privately acknowledge it was a mistake made because they had not been paying attention.
A First Lady Rarely Seen
Public appearances have been sparse for her since her husband’s second term began, and the Dallas decision fits that pattern. One analysis tallied 38 days on which she had been seen publicly as of early August, a figure that rose to 40 by September 4. The Freedom 250 Grand Prix in Washington on August 23 marked her latest appearance, and afterward the White House was reported to have cropped Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant, out of its own video of the couple at the race.
The Rose Garden had hosted her earlier, on August 20, where she delivered remarks about the expansion of her Fostering the Future Initiative — her first appearance with the president since the FIFA World Cup final in New Jersey on July 19. “I heard you missed me,” she joked to reporters. She also skipped the rearranged White House Correspondents’ Dinner on July 24 and, on July 28, the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Trump ally.
The campaign trail has long drawn the same reticence from her. In the 2024 race, her only significant appearance came on the closing night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, held days after a bullet struck Trump in the right ear in Butler, Pennsylvania. She spoke at the 2016 convention as well, where she was accused of plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s 2008 address; her speechwriter later took the blame.
In other respects she has hardly been invisible. A $40 million Amazon documentary starred her; a surprise news conference had her denying any past association with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel drew a rebuke from her over an on-air remark about the president.
On September 8, reporter Julie K. Brown wrote on her Substack that Amanda Ungaro, a former model and ex-partner of Trump envoy Paolo Zampolli, “has claimed she has a lot of kompromat on Trump, Melania and her former partner, Paolo Zampolli; that Epstein (not Zampolli) introduced Melania to Trump; and that she has documentation, including emails, that could hurt those in Trump’s world. And she is now talking to Congress.” Ungaro’s earlier threats were suspected as motivation for Melania Trump’s April statement denying any relationship with Epstein. Ungaro did not provide evidence.
The bipartisan Take It Down Act, which targets revenge porn and explicit deepfakes, found a champion in her, and Russian President Vladimir Putin became the counterpart in back-channel talks she opened aimed at returning captured Ukrainian children. In a telephone call with President Trump on September 8, Putin “noted the efforts of US First Lady Melania Trump in returning Russian and Ukrainian children to their families,” according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, as reported by TASS; the call focused on the Ukrainian settlement and the recent Moscow and Kyiv visits by US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Marc Beckman, an adviser to the first lady, has called her the most consequential first lady in American history.
Trump heads to Dallas with his approval rating in the low 30s, weighed down by the continuing war with Iran, an affordability crisis and a reignited trade fight with Canada. Democrats opted against holding a midterm convention of their own — and when the president takes the stage in Dallas on September 9, his wife will not be in the arena.