Donald Trump

Trump's Latest Attempt To Salvage the Midterms: Bribe and Extort the Voters

As the election approaches, it is more clear than ever that the president values loyalty over all else.

Joe Lancaster | 10.29.2026 3:30 PM

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(Illustration: Pedro Portal/TNS/Newscom/Eti Swinford/Shane Morris/Dreamstime)

The midterm elections are just days away, and while anything can happen, the broad consensus among pollsters suggests a bad night for Republicans.

Hoping to shore up a victory for his party, President Donald Trump seized upon an idea: bribe the voters.

"If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them," Trump pledged in September, "I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000."

According to Vice President J.D. Vance, this "dividend"—which would cost more than $1.3 trillion—would come from the "extraordinary amount of revenue" generated by Trump's tariffs. Of course, that math doesn't work: According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the U.S. took in just under $300 billion in tariff revenue between January 2025 and July 2026, not counting the amount it has had to refund after the Supreme Court found they were illegally imposed.

At that rate, it would take years of tariffs just to pay for Trump's dividend. Adding insult to injury, of course, is the fact that tariffs are paid by Americans, meaning we would be taxing ourselves to pay for our own disbursement.

But in the campaign season's closing days, Trump has made a number of other threats and offers, contingent on his party's success—a completely risible use of government power.

In September, three Ohio Republicans—Rep. Mike Turner and Sens. Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted—petitioned the president to build a planned Space Force training academy in their state.

"Every other state wants it," Trump said this month at an Ohio campaign rally. "If we win the midterms, Ohio will be very, very strongly considered."

Some of his pledges have been much more explicitly transactional.

On October 17, the Department of Defense—which Trump calls by its original name, the Department of War—announced a conditional $80 billion loan to pharmaceutical manufacturer Antheia. That same day, at a campaign rally in Kentucky, Trump made a pledge to the state's voters.

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