What the curious ended up seeing: a lower-energy version of the same Trump. Skeptical voters looking for a different Trump turned off the broadcast disappointed.
In hindsight, and especially through the prism of this Democratic convention in Chicago, it now looks like Trump and the GOP blew it in Milwaukee. That includes the decision to use the vice presidential pick to electrify the MAGA base rather than to try to unify the Nikki Haley-Mitch McConnell wing of the party and the decision to use celebrities to deliberately target the male gaming and sports fan crowd. From Hulk Hogan to Dana White to Kid Rock, the GOP convention seemed focused on only one demographic: younger working-class men — folks who aren’t swing voters per se, unless you view swing voters as voters who swing between voting and not voting.
Unlike what the Democrats have done here in Chicago, the Republicans didn’t make a direct appeal to the center of the American electorate. The GOP did little to assuage the fears of some voters that it was moving too far to the right. Outside of inviting Haley to speak, it’s hard to point to a single night that seemed dedicated to expanding the tent of Trump’s GOP.
It’s still shocking to me that, for all the public warnings Republicans were making that the Democrats could swap out President Joe Biden for someone else, the Trump campaign didn’t actually appear to prepare for that possibility. Could it really be they didn’t believe their own rhetoric on this? Were they that sure Biden could be as stubborn as Trump was in 2016 in refusing to step aside post-“Access Hollywood” tape? Perhaps they simply didn’t think Vice President Kamala Harris could electrify the Democrats as their new nominee.
Whatever the reason, it now turns out the GOP convention was a big, massive, wasted opportunity, given the current state of the campaign. They could have approached their convention as an opportunity to expand their tent, see whether they could build coattails for Trump and even rebrand him as someone who is less of an insurgent and more of a responsible change agent. But Trump’s greatest appeal to his base and his Achilles’ heel with swing voters are the same thing: He is who he is.
Which brings us to the Democrats and this convention. Like the Republicans in Milwaukee, you can sense a shockingly high level of confidence and euphoria about Harris, in a way that would have been hard to fathom just six weeks ago.
But if there is one obvious difference between the two conventions, it’s how much time Democrats spent trying to reassure skeptical moderates about the party’s direction. From nixing their pledge to abolish the death penalty in their platform to touting their support for the tough bipartisan border security bill, the Democrats have taken pains to answer the Republican criticism that they’ve become too soft on domestic security issues.
And that’s just on immigration and crime. Democrats have also taken pains to try to erase the perception that the party has become too “woke.” The Obamas, in particular, both spoke to Democrats about remembering that they need the votes of folks who don’t necessarily agree with them all the time.
And despite the pressure some progressives have tried to put on Harris and the Democratic National Committee to acquiesce to Gaza protesters, they kept as much of that debate out of this convention as they could, though Harris did address it in a substantial stretch of her speech Thursday night. A lot of Republicans were convinced the Democrats would be forced to cave in to various protester demands, but the Democrats were disciplined and didn’t budge on the handful of “uncommitted” delegates’ main demand: a speaking slot for a sympathetic supporter.
This was a tightly controlled convention when it came to what was said from the stage. In addition, convention organizers had “minders” or “chaperones” — or whatever you want to call them — for the delegations with the most “uncommitted” delegates, who were the Gaza protest voters. The last thing they wanted were those delegates trying to cause a scene on the convention floor.
The third night, in particular, was clearly an attempt to talk to skeptical independents and disaffected Republicans to try to convince them that a vote for Harris wouldn’t mean giving up their conservative beliefs or somehow becoming a Democrat. While this election may be binary, no one’s belief system should be — that was the message from folks like Oprah Winfrey (who emphasized that she is a registered independent) and former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (who is still a registered Republican).
Now, the flip side of all of this: It might not matter.
It’s possible this Democratic convention’s impact on the race dissipates faster than folks realize. Five of the last six elections in this century have been decided by 5 points or less, and it’s hard to point to any convention in the last 20 years that has had a large impact, positively or negatively. Recent research has indicated that conventions are mostly viewed by folks who are already supporters.
But I don’t want to rule out the idea that a convention bounce catapults Harris to a more commanding position. There’s a lot about this convention that reminds me of two Democratic conventions from the 20th century: Al Gore’s in 2000 and Bill Clinton’s in 1992.
In both cases, Gore and Clinton were trailing their opponents going into their conventions. Both badly needed to rebrand to get back in the game.
Clinton’s 1992 convention actually shares a lot of similarities with this one. He was in third place for much of the summer before his convention and his pick of Gore as his running mate. Things were so bleak in the minds of some Democrats that a powerful California Democrat at the time (Willie Brown) publicly mused about replacing Clinton as the nominee with Ross Perot, the independent candidate who was sitting in first place against both Clinton and President George H.W. Bush.
There was a lot of pressure on Clinton to reassure voters he had the character and, most important, that he was tough enough to be president. The big moment of that convention was the unveiling of that famous photo of a young Clinton shaking JFK’s hand — it created the sense Clinton was a rightful heir to lead the Democratic Party.
Clinton left his convention in first place, and he never gave up the lead.
As for Gore in 2000, his challenge was finding a way to get out of Clinton’s shadow. The running mate pick of a Clinton critic, Sen. Joe Lieberman, was one key ingredient. Then Gore went a lot more populist in his acceptance speech and ended it with a famous kiss of his wife, Tipper — and suddenly the race was transformed. The entire convention really resonated. He caught George W. Bush in the polls, and while he lost under agonizing circ*mstances, the fact the 2000 campaign ended in a virtual tie began with Gore’s convention rebrand.
Now, despite the happy talk and the positive vibes here in Chicago, there is also a fear or dread among many Democratic strategists — not a current sense of it, but a feeling of needing to look around the corner. Is there another shoe to drop in this already wild ride of a campaign? What outside event could happen that could create another twist in this race?
Any high-profile government failure (storm response, for example) could turn into a headache for the Democratic ticket, since it is Democrats who are in the White House.
Two hypothetical events that I have long thought could work against Harris and in Trump’s favor are increased violence in the Middle East — specifically a military confrontation between Iran and Israel — or a surprise set of bank failures triggered by a collapse of the commercial real estate market sometime before November.
But for now, Harris has won the summer, and given where the Democratic Party was at the end of June, it’s quite remarkable she has pulled this off. The real question is whether this is sustainable.
Democrats have won summers before, only to lose the falls in 1988 and 2016. Right now, Harris is getting a tremendous assist from her opponent. Trump has struggled to respond to her. Even during this convention week, he has chased after every attack leveled at him, whether from the Obamas, the Clintons or even Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. The fact that he can’t focus on Harris, even after what has happened to his lead, should really alarm Republicans. A generic Republican would most likely be a lot stronger against Harris right now than Trump.
But here we are, and while I’m not ready to call Harris the favorite in this race, I think it’s fair to say she’s winning at the moment. She still has some tests under fire to pass; her unscripted moments in the past have been uneven. But she has somehow grabbed the “change” mantle from Trump even though she’s the sitting VP. If she can continue to be on the side of “new” and “future” and she can prevent herself from having to answer too much for Biden’s incumbency, by October, this really could be her race to lose.
But given how many twists this campaign has already experienced, it’s better to be prepared for an unknown challenge in the next 60 days.
