President Donald Trump concluded a jam-packed day one of the first-ever Republican midterm convention, setting the stage for his planned campaign blitz to bring his party to victory in November.

In his keynote address, Trump outlined steep stakes for the November contests, painting the midterms as a choice between the “disaster, bedlam, and death” of the Democrats and an opportunity to “leave the world in our dust.”

The midterm convention is the first of its kind for the GOP and comes as Trump hopes to buck the historical trend of the president’s party losing ground two years into their term. Current polling suggests the Democrats are favored to take the House while the Senate remains a toss up. 

But the GOP is pulling out all the stops this cycle to defy history, including with the convention itself. Republican heavyweights, including lawmakers, media pundits, and activists all gathered to push party messaging and try to boost turnout for candidates in tough races. Trump himself joked that the novel idea had outperformed media expectations.

“You have to remember when we originally announced this eight weeks ago, they said, ‘[w]ho's going to go to a midterm convention? They’re never going to,’” he said. “This place is packed.”

Wednesday’s lineup featured a series of House members, grassroots activists, state attorneys general, and battleground Senate candidates. Among the most notable were North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley and Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton, both of whom face tough races.

Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., both of whom also face tough Senate contests, spoke on Day One.

While Trump’s speech received top billing, the most unexpected development of the night was Sen. John Fetterman’s, D-Pa., surprise video appearance at the convention, in which he promised to stand with America and oppose extremism. Fetterman has, in recent months, made headlines over his growing disagreement with the Democrats on Israel and speculation has abounded that he could switch parties.

Ultimately, Trump spent much of his time pitching candidates in battleground races, notably urging voters in Dallas, Texas, to support Paxton in that contest.

“We have to elect Ken Paxton,” he said, highlighting the importance of the race to winning the midterms overall. Trump also jokingly mocked Paxton’s appearance and sense of dress before saying “[h]e’s the greatest attorney general in America and he deserves to be your next senator.”

Much of the speech focused on overcoming the historical momentum that benefits the opposition party in the midterms.

"For some reason, when a president wins, even if he's really a good president or a great president, there aren't too many of them, they don't win the midterms, and nobody quite knows why. It's two out of, think of it, two out of 25 races. We're going to change that," Trump said.

"So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. Just one more time, because if we lose, you're going to lose your border, you're going to lose your tax cuts, you're going to lose your safety and security, you're going to lose your wealth," Trump went on. "Our country is going through hell.”

To cap the speech, however, Trump made a bold promise to issue a $5,000 "Trump dividend" to every U.S. citizen if Republicans won both chambers, asserting that he could make the promise because of Republican economic successes.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent for Just the News. Follow him on X.