Republicans will have to “maintain the excitement, the enthusiasm” shown around presidential candidate Donald Trump during the recently concluded National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and not assume an early victory that could jeopardize the former president’s chances of returning to the White House.
Republican spokesmen and analysts also warned in interviews with the Voice of America that the challenge will also be to attract new voters to beat the Democratic Party.
The comments came shortly after balloons fell at the Fiserv Forum after the speech in which Trump formally accepted the party’s nomination ahead of the presidential elections in November, in his first public address after the failed assassination attempt.
“The key for the (Trump) campaign is to maintain this excitement, to maintain this enthusiasm that is seen in this Convention. A Convention that many thought was going to be a divided convention. (…) The challenge is going to be to maintain this unity and not only mobilize the base, which is already with President Trump, but to try to persuade the few who remain to be persuaded,” he told the Voice of America Former White House policy director during the Trump administration, Carlos Díaz-Rosillo.
For the political scientist and analyst, the American electorate “is extremely divided” and as a continuation of the euphoria of the event, they will have to try to “persuade those who still do not know whether they will vote for President Trump.”
“A challenge is also going to be not assuming that it’s already won. Many people assume that the election is already won. (…) We must not assume that it is already won, but fight until every vote is counted.”
Campaigning for Latino Voters
During the Republican National Convention (RNC), the former president’s campaign spokespeople made sure to extend his message to the Latino community. Promises of economic prosperity, lowering inflation, creating more jobs and managing illegal immigration, they say, are the ones that resonate most with Hispanics.
The way forward “in these four months I believe is to continue campaigning, having a presence in all (Latino) communities,” he told the VOA Director of Hispanic Engagement at the American Principles Project, Alfonso Aguilar.
“This president (Trump) has visited Hialeah, Florida; the Bronx; he has visited Detroit, Michigan, different communities. (…) We will continue to communicate in Spanish throughout the country, in those Hispanic communities. In the swing states, almost all of them, the Hispanic vote is decisive and we are aggressively campaigning at the grassroots, reaching out to Hispanic communities,” warned Aguilar.
The conservative analyst said that the Republican Party “has to learn” from President Trump. “I think that for a long time the Republican Party was seen as a party of elites and now there are so many African Americans, Hispanics, independents and people who were previously Democrats, coming to the Republican Party, because Trump has been able to communicate with them with a populist message,” he added.
Unreserved support for Trump in Milwaukee
The RNC was held from July 15-18 in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Throughout the four days of RNC events, speeches, and collateral activities, attendees showed unabashed support for Trump, who chose as his Senator JD Vance’s running mate39 years old.
For the participants, this was a great celebration, a meeting that “many thought would be a divided Convention. I believe that the Democratic Convention is the one that will be divided. This one has shown great unity,” added Díaz-Rosillo in reference to the next Democratic meeting, to be held in the nearby city of Chicago, from August 18 to 22.
The uncertain road to the Democratic Convention in Chicago
As Republicans present a united front around their leader and presidential candidate, Democrats are debating whether or not to support President Joe Biden, who after a weak performance in the first presidential debate of the election cycle, faces growing calls to suspend his campaign in favor of someone more likely to take on Trump.
Senior members of the blue party reportedly doubt that the 81-year-old veteran politician has the physical and mental capacity to face another four years in the White House. Biden, for now, has insisted that he will remain in the race, but sources say that would be considering giving way to a new candidate.
This would turn the Democratic campaign upside down, just weeks before its National Convention, where the party’s proposal for the elections must be formalized.
“I don’t think anyone knows what’s going to happen. It’s a convention that’s going to be very divided. There’s a chance, I don’t know how likely it is, that it’s going to be an open convention, which hasn’t happened since 1968. So the convention that was supposed to be a coronation is going to be, I think, a very divided convention, with a lot of controversy and a lot of protest from the Democrats themselves who are going to want to raise their voice and show that they’re not happy with the way their party is doing things,” warned Díaz-Rosillo.
Meanwhile, Biden’s setbacks continue. The president had to suspend his campaign events for testing positive for Covid-19His vice president and running mate, Kamala Harris, has taken up the mantle to try to attract voter support.
“Several of my colleagues who are talking to reporters saying that the president needs to make his decision, (he) already made his decision. President Biden received the vote of millions of voters and we are ready to win in November. We all have to focus on the election this November,” he told the VOA in Milwaukee, Democratic Congresswoman Veronica Escobar.
Escobar insisted that despite the reports, they are determined to fight against what they say is a harmful agenda for Americans. “We are united against Donald Trump, against the vision of Project 2025 and we are united against the extremism that we have seen in the Republican Party,” he concluded.
[Con la colaboración de Jorge Agobian, enviado especial de la VOA a Milwaukee]
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