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President Donald Trump used his keynote address at the Republican National Convention in Dallas on Wednesday to frame the November midterm elections as a choice between two sharply different directions for the country, as reported by Breitbart.

Speaking at the American Airlines Center on September 9, Trump argued that maintaining Republican control of Congress would allow his administration to continue pursuing its economic and policy agenda, while a Democratic takeover would lead the country in a different direction.

The convention, which runs September 9 and 10, is the first Republican National Convention specifically organized around a midterm election.

Historically, national party conventions have been associated with presidential election years and the formal nomination of presidential candidates.

Lee Greenwood performed “God Bless the USA” before Trump took the stage at the home of the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars.

Trump immediately focused his remarks on the approaching election.

“In 55 days, Americans will be going to the polls in one of the most important elections in our country’s history. Your vote will decide whether our country stumbles at the starting gate of the next 250 years or surges forward and never ever looks back,” he said.

“We hand America’s future to the radical left Democrats, and our nation will spend the next decade just getting back on its feet. It will be a tragedy. Vote Republican, and we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come. There’ll be nothing like it,” he added.

Trump said 35 closely contested congressional races would be particularly important to determining control of Congress.

Republicans currently hold a 53-seat Senate majority, while the House is also narrowly divided between the two parties. Senate records list 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and two independents for the 119th Congress.

The president said he plans to campaign in states with competitive congressional races.

“We have a very short period of time, and we really have 35 races. They all count, but we have 35 races that are, I guess you’d call swings, right? Like we had seven swing states; we won all seven, right? Yeah. So I said, not that I’m looking for the work. You know, I said the other day I got so much of a schedule. I said, ‘I thought I won. What do I have to do? I’m campaigning,’ But I am. We’re campaigning to make it incredible,” he said.

“The ones that are very close—they might be winning by a little, or losing by a little, or tied—we can win every one of those races,” he said.

“But I’m going to go to every one of those states for congressmen and Senators… and we’re going to have rallies just like this.”

Trump also addressed the economy and the issue of affordability, which Democrats have emphasized as a central issue heading into the midterms.

He criticized spending and energy policies from the Biden administration and argued that those policies contributed to higher prices.

“Our predecessors killed and buried the American dream with trillions of dollars in waste and green energy scams—the greatest scams in American history—green energy… Most of them had no idea what it was; they just said, ‘Let’s go green,’ And every country that’s gone green is down the tubes, you do know that, but it caused prices to skyrocket,” Trump said.

“They used the word affordability, right? They are so fake, because it was them that caused the affordability, to use their word, crisis, and I’m bringing the prices way down, way way down…We’re fixing it. We’re fixing it,” he added.

Trump also discussed the conflict involving Iran and predicted that the situation would change following the November 3 election.

He said the Iranian government was waiting in hopes that Democrats would gain power.

“And prices right after this very important election on November 3 will be plummeting. The war will be over very shortly after the election. They’re hanging on for dear life, hoping that we lose, so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats, and they can have their bomb,” he said.

“We’re not going to let that happen.”

“So they’re going to be quitting or dropping out or who knows what the hell, whatever it is, right after Election Day, because they…. desperately want to deal with Democrats like Obama, Barack Hussein Obama,” he added.

Trump’s remarks come as Republicans seek to maintain their congressional majorities during a midterm cycle that historically presents challenges for the party occupying the White House.

The House has changed majority parties 19 times since 1856, with more than three-quarters of those changes occurring during midterm elections, according to the House historian.

Trump’s own party faces the additional challenge of trying to maintain both chambers simultaneously.

According to congressional records, only a small number of previous administrations have entered a midterm election with control of the White House, House and Senate and retained both congressional majorities afterward.

The most recent example was 2002, when Republicans retained both chambers during President George W. Bush’s first term.

Democrats expanded their congressional majorities in 1934 while Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president.

Trump has made the midterms a central focus of his political schedule, telling reporters before traveling to Dallas that Republicans should continue making their case to voters.

“Just keep fighting and just keep explaining how well we’re doing as a country. We’re doing better now as a country than we’ve ever done before,” Trump said.

The November 3 election will determine the composition of Congress for the next session and provide the first nationwide congressional test of Trump’s second administration.