Vouching for President Trump as empathetic yet action-oriented has emerged as a major theme of the Republican convention as his campaign moves to shore up critical vulnerabilities with key voters that jeopardize his reelection.
Speaker after speaker has told personal stories casting Trump as caring and courteous, a compassionate resource of last resort when nobody else would listen. And, if the president is occasionally a brute? Conceding the point, a parade of Trump family members, Republican officials, and rank-and-file voters said in a series of compelling speeches that the president only blusters because he is committed to getting things done that typical statesmen lack the gumption to accomplish.
By design, political conventions are paeans to the nominee. But the Trump campaign’s emphasis on improving the president’s personal favorability ratings and putting his provocative behavior in a positive context, are attempts to restore his support among women and suburban voters. Simultaneously, the Trump campaign hopes to use this week’s largely virtual gathering to undercut Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s crucial advantages on empathy and the question of which candidate “cares about people like me.”
“This is very telling of what the Trump campaign is seeing in the data,” said Jeffrey Brauer, a political scientist at Keystone University in Pennsylvania, an important swing state. Brauer said the GOP convention has unfolded like a celebration of two candidates, with Trump alternately described as a unifier who is “really not that brash” and a fighter with a combative demeanor, “and whether you like that demeanor or not, he is a man of action.”
As the presidential campaign stands on the eve of Trump’s major speech accepting the GOP’s renomination, explains Republican consultant Michael Steel, Trump cannot win without the backing voters who are unhappy with his personal conduct but support his agenda. “They desperately need people who dislike the president’s coarseness,” Steel said. “That was an easier sell when they could point to a booming economy or when they were hoping to run against a more polarizing Democrat.”
Among the main threats to Trump’s reelection is from disaffected Republicans, particularly college-educated suburbanites, who oppose left-wing policies but abhor the president’s conduct and are exhausted by his polarizing style. Biden is wooing them aggressively, presenting himself as a mainstream liberal who will seek to forge consensus in Washington and treat political opponents with grace. Republican strategists advising down-ballot candidates say Biden’s strategy could work.
That could explain the warning issued by Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, during her Tuesday evening convention speech. “I encourage you to see beyond the facade that so many other politicians employ. They mask themselves in disguises of decency,” she said. That also might explain why first lady Melania Trump, during her keynote that followed, sought to soften the president’s rough edges.
“Whether you like it or not, you always know what he’s thinking,” she said. “That is because he is a person who loves this country and its people and wants to continue to make it better. Donald wants to keep your family safe, he wants to help your family succeed.”
For many Republican voters, Trump’s pugilistic brand of politics is a feature, not a bug. They appreciate the president’s unorthodox transparency and believe he would not have won the White House, or been able to honor his campaign promises, if he censored his rhetoric or behavior. A former reality television star, Trump is a showman who strikes many of his supporters as charismatic and engaging.
The problem for Trump as Nov. 3 approaches, potentially, is that the suburban voters crucial to his first victory have been defecting, deciding that what was good for the campaign trail is not acceptable in the Oval Office. If this component of Trump’s 2016 coalition votes for Biden, it becomes difficult for him to win.
The media landscape through Election Day could be dominated by Trump and the same polarizing personality that has disgruntled so many independents and old-guard Republicans. Some GOP insiders say no amount of convention speeches during one week in August that paint a different picture of the president can compete with that.
Although not dismissive of Trump’s prospects, Democrats tend to agree.
“What they’re asking is, believe what we say, not what you see and hear,” Democratic strategist Dane Strother said. “They’re hoping some voters are chumps.”
