CLEVELAND — Donald Trump faces a Herculean task as the Republican National Convention kicks off Monday.
Trump is a master showman and the convention is an extended commercial for his presidential campaign. But the stakes are higher than “The Apprentice.” Here are few challenges Republicans face as they seek to pull off a successful campaign.
Hillary Clinton is running ahead. Clinton leads Trump both nationally and in nearly all the battleground states. That doesn’t mean she will definitely win. Michael Dukakis led George H.W. Bush by 17 points in 1988 at a later point in the campaign. This contest is still much closer.
That said, Trump needs a real bounce coming out of Cleveland. Despite the Republican National Committee’s best efforts to pick up the slack for Trump’s organization, the Democrats’ ground game is believed to be much further along. If so, a tie — and perhaps even a slight Trump lead — goes to Clinton.
Mitt Romney’s relatively close match against Barack Obama in the popular vote turned into an Electoral College blowout precisely because Romney lost nearly all the battlegrounds, however narrowly.
There is also risk that party donors, who are already not especially enthusiastic about the Trump ticket, will lose confidence that this is a winnable race if he doesn’t erase Clinton’s polling lead during the convention or at least come close.
Party unity is still a problem. Pace Never Trump, an overwhelming majority of rank-and-file Republicans prefer Trump to Clinton. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found 96 percent of “very conservative” voters backed Trump.
But that doesn’t mean Republicans are necessarily happy about their choices. According to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll ahead of the convention, only 13 percent of Republicans say their party is unified and just 38 percent are satisfied with Trump as the nominee.
The dissatisfaction is even more pronounced among the party activists who tend to be convention delegates, to say nothing of Republican donors and political consultants who will be in attendance. Lots of candidates in tough races, incumbent officeholders and party leaders are staying away from Cleveland while hundreds of delegates are going to show up less happy than usual.
Delegates the Washington Examiner spoke to were uniformly supportive of Trump in November, though he was not always their first preference. Several expressed that the losing candidates from the primaries learned valuable lessons that will help them perform better next time around.
Trump picked Mike Pence as his running mate in order to help the party unification process. Ted Cruz’s speech at the convention will also be an important moment, although it is likely he will use it to make Republicans regret their choice just as Ronald Reagan did at the 1976 Republican convention.
While anti-Trump delegates have failed in their efforts to dethrone the presumptive Republican nominee, they are too numerous and politically experienced to go quietly into the good night. They are likely to do something to make their presence known on national TV. Trump will have to upstage them to ensure they are not the story.
Trump’s demographic appeal is much more limited than when he entered the race. When Trump took his ride down the escalator, it was easy to assume that if he did somehow win the nomination he would put on a star-studded convention filled with his celebrity friends.
For example, Trump floated an “evening of winners” that featured sports stars like NFL quarterbacks Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger rather than establishment politicians. It was a good idea. With few exceptions (Dana White), nothing like that appears to have materialized.
The narrowness of Trump’s appeal is affecting more than his showmanship. He was at zero percent among blacks in recent Ohio and Pennsylvania polls. Some polling suggests he is hardening Latino attitudes against the GOP.
This could cost Trump swing states — he was winning whites in Ohio and Pennsylvania in the same polls, for example, and was competitive statewide — while costing the GOP over the long term.
Trump has bonded a with hardcore base of supporters at the expense of appealing to some growing demographic groups. Now he is holding his nominating convention in the aftermath of police shootings in a city where open carry of firearms is broadly legal and mass protests are likely.
Can Trump look in command or will this look like the 1968 Democratic convention redux?
How much progress Republicans can make in dealing with any of these problems will determine the success or failure of the Cleveland convention — and likely Trump’s presidential campaign.
