The main business of the first session was the formal nomination of Trump as the party’s presidential standard-bearer for the third time in as many elections, ratifying his easy string of victories during the Republican primaries. The convention will be a demonstration that Trump has totally remade the Republican Party in his own image and around the issues and policies he favors.
This year’s convention comes during a month in which the former president has seen events play to his advantage, and his campaign’s hope is that they can create momentum heading out of the convention at the end of the week.
Even before the nearly 2,500 delegates could take their seats in the Fiserv Forum, the convention arena, Trump received a major victory when U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon dismissed the indictment against him in the classified documents case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.
It was the latest in a series of events that have played in Trump’s favor, including President Biden’s faltering debate performance, which has thrown the Democratic Party into turmoil amid calls for the president to step aside, just as Republicans have newfound unity.
Delegates, decked out in patriotic colors, were in an upbeat mood as the week began, relieved that Trump had survived Saturday’s shooting and hopeful about the final months of the campaign. At the media center, vendors were selling all kinds of Trump merchandise, including a variety of T-shirts that read, “I’m voting for the convicted felon.”
“It feels like there’s momentum that has shifted in our favor,” said Stephanie Soucek, a delegate from Wisconsin. “It feels like we’re much more unified, which is what we’ve been pushing for.” As awful as the assassination attempt was, she said, it “has caused people to rally around Trump more.”
But in a sharply polarized country where both parties see little margin for error in a handful of hotly contested swing states, some Republicans have warned against complacency. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a longtime Trump loyalist, said the party cannot get overconfident. “People have a tendency sometimes, when they think things are real good, to ease up a little bit. That’s a way to lose. You have to work every single second,” he said.
Saturday’s shooting at a Trump rally in Butler, Pa., increased security concerns at an already locked-down city and has the potential to alter the tone of the convention itself. Trump issued a statement early Monday that he had decided to change his Thursday acceptance speech to focus on unity rather than attacks on Biden.
But party officials indicated no major changes were planned for the already well-scripted convention. The schedule includes three nights of programming designed to prosecute the case against Biden and his policies on the economy, inflation, immigration and safety. Monday evening’s prime-time program was titled, “Make America Wealthy, Again.”
In typical fashion for a candidate who relishes attention and suspense, Trump orchestrated his running-mate rollout with a flair for the dramatic. At the beginning of the day, speculation continued to focus on three finalists: Vance, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.). But as the convention session opened, the eliminations began, almost like in Trump’s reality television show, “The Apprentice.”
First came word that Rubio had been told he would not be Trump’s choice. Later, reports said that Burgum, too, had been informed that he was not Trump’s choice. Trump kept the suspense alive a bit longer before announcing that Vance was his choice. In the convention hall, attendees began to write “Vance” on their Trump signs.
Vance, 39, is one of the youngest vice-presidential nominees in history. He is serving in his first term in the Senate, having been elected in 2022 from a state that has turned decisively to Trump since 2016.
Vance beamed as he entered the hall for his formal nomination and walked slowly down the aisle with his wife, Usha Vance, pausing to clasp people’s hands and pose for photos. His introduction track — “America First” by Merle Haggard — had played twice by the time he took his place next to Bernie Moreno, the GOP nominee for Senate in Ohio.
“For J.D. Vance, America First is not just a slogan,” Moreno told the crowd. “It’s his North Star.”
Donald Trump Jr., who pushed for Vance, told reporters that he sees Vance as someone who can “carry … that America First movement forward.”
Biden’s campaign immediately drew attention to Vance’s embrace of Trump’s false claims he won the 2020 election and said he would do what Mike Pence refused to do for Trump: reject legitimate election results.
“A clone of Trump on the issues,” Biden said of Vance on Monday. “I don’t see any difference.”
Vice President Harris left a message congratulating Vance and saying she hopes they can face off in a vice-presidential debate organized by CBS News, according to a Biden-Harris campaign official.
Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann opened the nominating speeches for the former president with an exuberant speech and the delegates responded loudly with chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “USA!” USA! USA!”
The roll call of the states, one of the traditions of political conventions, began shortly before 3 p.m., with Iowa, where Trump’s victory in last winter’s caucuses started him on the path to the nomination, casting the first votes for his renomination. Iowa’s votes were soon followed by New Hampshire, which in 2016 was the first state Trump won on his way to his nomination that year.
One more sign of Trump’s takeover of the party came when the chair of the Massachusetts delegation referred to his state as “Magachusetts.” In 2022, Charlie Baker, then the moderate Republican governor who had been at odds with Trump and with Trump’s followers within the party, chose not to seek reelection.
When the roll call arrived at Trump’s adopted home state of Florida, it was Trump’s son Eric who cast the deciding votes that gave the former president the necessary number of votes to claim the nomination. The screens in the convention hall flashed with videos of fireworks with the words “OVER THE TOP,” setting off a brief celebration.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has tangled with Trump for years but who said he will nonetheless vote for him in November, announced the votes for the commonwealth. His appearance drew boos from the delegates across the convention floor.
The Democratic drama took attention away from Trump’s debate performance, which was replete with lies and distorted statements, and gave him the opportunity to stay out of the limelight while the Democrats argued among themselves.
Trump had been mostly out of the limelight since the CNN debate in Atlanta, preferring to let the squabbling Democrats take center stage. This week will mark his full reemergence and comes after the shocking shooting at his rally Saturday and his show of defiance, his arm raised, his fist clenched, as he was led to safety by Secret Service agents.
“Donald Trump’s reaction to being shot, almost assassinated and his show of strength — yelling, ‘Fight, fight, fight’ — just brings all of us that sense of a desire to make America great again,” said RNC committee member Jane Timken of Ohio. Attendees were still in shock over the violence, she said, but crowd was energized.
Trump arrived in Milwaukee on Sunday night. People with knowledge of his activities said he had dinner with one of his donors, and aides reported that he was in good spirits, despite the shooting that left his right ear bloodied, a member of the audience dead, two others wounded and the suspected shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, dead at the hands of the Secret Service.
The former president told journalist Salena Zito, who was close to where the shooting took place Saturday, that he had decided to change his acceptance speech as a result of the shooting. “Had this not happened, we had a speech that was pretty well set that was extremely tough,” he said. “Now, we have a speech that is more unifying,”
Security remained a major issue on the convention’s first day. Secret Service officials said Sunday that they were not changing their security blueprint, which they said had been the result of 18 months of planning. Local officials said Milwaukee this week would probably be one of the safest places on the planet. Still, after what happened in Pennsylvania on Saturday, the potential for unexpected problems was clearly on the minds of many.
The most secure zone in downtown Milwaukee, which includes the convention center, the media filing center and other buildings, showed a heavy presence of law enforcement officials, many from out of state. Convention attendees, from production workers to volunteers to members of the media, faced long lines as they tried to enter the secure zone Monday morning.
Secret Service officials continued to come under criticism for what appeared to be security lapses Saturday that allowed the shooter access to the roof of a building with a line of sight to the stage where Trump was speaking.
One other piece of business on the first day was the adoption of the party platform. To the dismay of some conservative activists, the platform downplays the issue of abortion in contrast to the language in past platforms.
Trump campaigned in 2016 with a pledge to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade, which for decades guaranteed the right to abortion nationwide. He made good on that pledge with three conservative nominees, who overturned Roe in 2022.
But after that decision, voters repeatedly supported abortion rights referendums, even in red states, prompting Trump and many other Republicans to back away from the idea of national restrictions.
The platform drops the call for a “human life amendment” and frames abortion as an issue for states to regulate — though Democrats note it still leaves the door open to banning abortion under the 14th Amendment.
The new platform — which Trump personally reviewed and edited, according to advisers — also abandons the old document’s opposition to same-sex marriage, saying only that “Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage.”
Sabrina Rodriguez, Dylan Wells and Maegan Vazquez in Milwaukee and Tyler Pager in Washington contributed to this report.
