Analysis: Mississippi GOP joins national trend in adding Trump’s name to annual Lincoln-Reagan Gala
When the Mississippi Republican Party recently held its annual Lincoln-Reagan-Trump Gala at the Sheraton Refuge Hotel in Flowood, the party officially rebranded the fundraiser with its new name on printed invitations, which linked it to the nation’s 250th anniversary and described the June 4, 2026, event as a Semiquincentennial celebration. Gov. Tate Reeves and Republican National Committee co-chair K.C. Crosbie were keynote speakers.
Originally named the Lincoln Dinner (and sometimes the Lincoln Day Dinner) in the early 20th century, the annual fundraiser of Republican Party organizations paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln, the first elected Republican president and the architect of the Emancipation Proclamation. Many state and county parties added Ronald Reagan’s name after his 1980 election, producing the Lincoln-Reagan Dinner, which has been the standard for the last four decades.
Adding Donald Trump’s name is more recent. The Boston Globe reported in August 2025 that local Republican parties across the United States had begun renaming the dinner to include Trump in 2022 and 2023, with some parties dropping Lincoln and Reagan entirely in favor of Trump’s name alone. Florida’s Lee County Republican Executive Committee held its “Inaugural Lincoln Reagan Trump Dinner” in May 2026. Michigan’s Alcona County Republican Party held one in October 2025. The Republican Party of California’s San Luis Obispo County held one in June 2025. The moves were not without detractors: The Globe quoted a Republican Party official saying that including Trump’s name alongside those of Lincoln and Reagan was “sort of an insult to Lincoln and Reagan.”
The Mississippi rebrand follows this national GOP pattern. The state party’s 2026 invitation describes this year’s event as the “2026 Lincoln-Reagan-Trump Gala,” with Trump appended to the two earlier names rather than substituted for them. Reeves’s post-event social media account of the evening referred to it by the new name. The party has not publicly explained when or why the change was made, and the MSGOP’s website does not show prior years’ gala names for comparison.
Adding Trump’s name to civic and commercial branding is a pattern with its own history. The Trump Organization placed his name on hotels, residential towers, casinos, golf courses, steaks, vodka, bottled water and a university, including properties his company licensed to outside developers and did not own. Naming rights is a big deal to Trump: Since returning to office in January, he has signed executive orders renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and restoring Fort Bragg as the name of the Army installation in North Carolina that had been renamed Fort Liberty (Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general). He has proposed renaming Alaska’s Denali back to Mount McKinley (for another president). The thread running through the commercial and political naming is claiming places, institutions, and now political traditions associated with individual figures, some of whom are still living.
It has not gone unnoticed that Trump is particularly fond of adding his name to public institutions, including the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, though a court recently struck down that renaming; to the U.S. Institute for Peace, a congressionally funded think tank; to a new fleet of Navy vessels; to a savings account and investment program; to a prescription website; and to immigration “gold cards” (a complete list is here).
In March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation transferring to the state the authority to name major commercial service airports, including Palm Beach International Airport, which was renamed the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
In that context, adding Trump’s name to the annual GOP galas could be seen as a way to acknowledge the outsized impact of his presidency—or to curry favor with him.
The Lincoln Dinner originated in the late 19th century as a Republican observance of Lincoln’s February 12 birthday more than two decades after his assassination. Reagan’s name was added to many events after 1980, with most renamings coming after he left office in 1989 and accelerating after his death in 2004. Trump’s name has been added while he is in office and at the center of his party. The Mississippi rebrand places it alongside those of the president who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the president most associated with the modern conservative movement, for an event that helps fund Republican candidates while Trump remains the party’s sitting national leader.
Trump has placed himself in Lincoln’s company before. In a 2020 presidential debate, he said that “nobody has done more for the Black community than Donald Trump” with “the exception of Abraham Lincoln.” At a White House Rose Garden event in October 2025, while surveying portraits of past presidents, Trump said of Washington and Lincoln, “It’s going to be very tough to beat Washington and Lincoln, but we’re going to give it a try.” He also recounted having been angered by someone who had ranked him third, behind the two. The comparison has currency in his party. A 2019 Economist and YouGov poll found that 53 percent of Republicans rated Trump a better leader than Lincoln, while 78 percent of independents and 94 percent of Democrats chose Lincoln.
Reeves and Crosbie spoke under a banner that touted Trump’s name alongside Lincoln’s and Reagan’s. The Mississippi Republican Party has not said when it decided to add Trump’s name to the gala or who made the call. What the rebrand makes clear is that the party that holds every statewide office in Mississippi has decided, in 2026, that its annual fundraiser will be branded around a sitting president as well as the two it has been honoring for decades. The only higher form of praise would have been to name it the Trump-Lincoln-Reagan dinner.
Image: Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump (via Creative Commons)
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