During a campaign rally in Roanoke, Virginia alongside his running mate Mike Pence, Trump said, “Why did Hillary get rid of her middle name? Huh?” And there’s no guarantee voters would follow their chosen candidate’s lead.
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Trump exaggerated his success in those polls though saying he was up nine or 10 points after a convention bump, but Fivethirtyeight’s now-cast, an estimate of what would happen if the election were held today, suggests that Trump has gained about four percentage points. The convention, bringing an estimated 12,000 members, started Saturday.
In recent elections, conventions have rarely been turning points in the presidential election.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the 117th National Convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars at the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, Monday, July 25, 2016.
The race remains the same when the Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson is added. Most Republicans came away feeling at least somewhat more positive, including 46 percent who say they became “much” more positive, and 45 percent of conservatives who did. The vote change – such as it is – comes nearly entirely from a handful of those voters who were undecided or unsure last week, and not from a conversion of voters who were previously with Clinton; Clinton’s support remains the same despite so much of the convention’s rhetorical focus on her and the Democrats.
In some ways, Clinton sounded like Ronald Reagan in the 80’s bashing on Democrats who “blamed America first”. On Thursday night, Chelsea Clinton will take the stage to introduce her mother as “the next president of the United States”. There were chants of “lock her up” and plenty of accusations lodged against Clinton.
On the night Trump’s running mate vowed to support America’s allies, Trump offered a seemingly contradictory message to the New York Times; he suggested he might not defend a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation partner invaded by Russian Federation.
The VFW National Convention is not open to the public. About half don’t yet have an opinion of him. Nothing the anti-Trump forces say or do now can revoke his status as the GOP nominee, but an outburst would be embarrassing for Trump and would highlight lingering divisions within the party.
Finally, Clinton faces a problem that some of her aides acknowledge may be insoluble between now and November: her trust deficit.
“A lot of people are going to roll their eyes when President Obama makes the case that the country is on the right track”, said Ryan Williams, who worked for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s bid this year. But last week at the Republican convention in Cleveland, it was mocked. Please see our terms of service for more information.
Over the weekend, the DNC’s Rules Committee voted to create a “Unity Commission”, that bound the convention’s so-called “super-delegates” to the results of the party primaries and caucuses.
“But here’s what I want you to know: I will get up every single day in the White House, doing everything I possibly can to protect our country, to treat our men and women in uniform with the care and concern and respect they deserve”, she said. In 2008, just a quarter of Obama voters said they were voting more against John McCain than for Obama.
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CNN/ORC said after the Cleveland Convention, Trump has received major jump in support from independents. “I like people who weren’t captured”, Trump said, a comment that roiled Republicans and Democrats alike. “We’re the only children of billionaires as comfortable in a D10 Caterpillar as we are in our own cars”, said Trump’s son, Donald Jr., during his convention speech.
