US4 min(s) read
Could Donald Trump's $5,000 checks still be sent out even if the Republicans lose the midterm elections?
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Three weeks ago, Donald Trump stood in front of the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas and made the most expensive campaign promise in American history.
Every adult US citizen would receive a $5,000 'Trump Dividend' if Republicans held both the House and the Senate.
Tonight, they are losing both.
Democrats have already flipped a Senate seat in North Carolina, with Roy Cooper defeating Republican Michael Whatley, and held Georgia with Jon Ossoff winning comfortably against Trump-backed Mike Collins.
Chris Pappas has taken the open New Hampshire Senate seat for the Democrats. Republican sources are privately telling CNN they fear the House is gone and the Senate is 'looking shaky'.
As of 1:45 AM GMT, forecasting models give Democrats a greater than 99% chance of taking the House and an 85% chance of taking the Senate.
The probability of Republicans holding both chambers, which is what the $5,000 payment required, is below 1%.
The $5,000 is dead - or so it seems.
What Trump actually promised
At the convention on October 14, Trump announced that if Republicans maintained control of both the House and Senate, his administration would send $5,000 to every adult American citizen using revenue generated by tariffs.
The cost was estimated at $1.22 trillion. There was no legislation. No funding mechanism beyond the tariff claim. No timeline beyond 'if we win'. It was a campaign promise conditional on an election result that, as of tonight, has not gone his way.
Trump made the promise explicitly transactional. Vote Republican, get $5,000. The deal required Republican voters to deliver Congress. The exit polls suggest a significant number of those voters delivered something else entirely.
The three promises that all failed
The $5,000 was the biggest and the newest, but it was not the only payment promise Trump had in play heading into tonight.
The $2,000 tariff dividend, first promised in November 2025, has never been sent.
Trump told the New York Times in January he would get it done 'toward the end of the year'. His Treasury Secretary said it needed legislation.
Trump said it didn't. An expert shared a 'positive update' in July. Nobody has received a cheque.
The $500 Obamacare refund, announced in September, was supposed to go out in October. It has not arrived.
The $5,000 Trump Dividend was the third. It required a Republican Congress. That condition is failing on live television as the results come in.
Three promises. Three amounts. Three mechanisms. Zero dollars in anyone's bank account.
What tonight's results mean
A Democratic House can block any spending bill, any tax proposal, and any attempt to use tariff revenue for direct payments.
A Democratic Senate can do the same.
If Democrats take both, which forecasts now project as the most likely outcome, Trump's ability to pass any form of direct payment to citizens is functionally over for the remainder of his term.
He does not have the votes, he will not get the votes, and the promise he made three weeks ago, the one where he told a convention hall full of supporters that they would each receive $5,000 if they voted the right way, has been answered by an electorate that voted a different way.
What Trump said while the results came in
He was on Truth Social.
He called the Fox News exit poll results 'BULLS**T'. He described host Jessica Tarlov as 'DUMB AS A ROCK'. He posted 44 messages in 13 minutes endorsing Republican candidates. He claimed Fox News ratings were 'way down' because they were 'spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats'.
He did not mention the $5,000, the $2,000, or the $500.
The most expensive campaign promise in history lasted 21 days.
It was made on October 14, and it died on November 4.
It was never funded, never legislated, never real. And tonight, the voters it was designed to buy showed up and voted against the party that offered it.