Republicans leave RNC energized to run against…someone

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MILWAUKEE — For four joyful days here, Republicans celebrated. Their party had instantly rallied behind the ticket of Donald Trump and JD Vance. Democrats were melting down, panicking about Joe Biden, trying to convince him to abandon his campaign.

By Thursday afternoon, delegates were fretting that he might.

“If you replace Biden with anybody, it’ll be harder,” said Wes Nakagiri, a Michigan delegate who arrived to the Fiserv Forum dressed up as the 81-year old president – a Biden mask, a hospital gown, and an inflatable walker. “He’s so bad! Strictly from a selfish standpoint, I hope he stays in.”

It was a dizzying split-screen. Trump, the survivor of a failed assassination attempt, spent a week being prayed for and cheered for by energized Republicans.

Hulk Hogan ripped off a tank top to reveal a Trump-Vance shirt, pledging to “make Trumpamania run wild again!” Delegates recited the names of service members killed during the evacuation of Afghanistan, and chanted “fight, fight, fight,” as Trump had, after a bullet aimed at his head had grazed and wounded his right ear. A somber ex-president began his third acceptance speech retelling that story, steps away from gear belonging to the firefighter killed at the rally.

Democrats spent the week leaking damaging stories about Biden, working to replace the president with a younger and, hopefully, more electable ticket. As rumors swirled, Republicans wondered how they’d handle the switch. Biden was uniquely weak, they said. But any Democrat would have to own his record.

“It’s not about his state of mind,” said former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, asked how his party would adjust, if it didn’t get to run against Biden. “It’s not about age or dementia, or anything like that. It’s about policy.”

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Republicans hadn’t held a convention like this in 20 years — unified behind one candidate, every set piece going to plan, no distractions, celebrity guests on script. Biden was treated alternately as a joke, and a threat, a stumblebum (“the Barney Fife of border security”) whose carelessness was killing thousands of Americans.

But as the week wound down, they contemplated an election against a new Democratic ticket, without all of Biden’s weaknesses. They expected it to be led by Vice President Kamala Harris — unpopular, but not as tongue-tied or feeble as Biden. By Wednesday night, when Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19, a candidate swap was easier to imagine.

“I sent a text to the powers that be — you better make your speech about Kamala,” Turning Point USA president Charlie Kirk told Semafor. “I think she’ll help with the Democrat base, but hurt with traditional, Republican, suburban voters.”

Shortly after the first presidential debate, many within Trump’s orbit were indeed not convinced Biden would ever step aside: The president, they noted, was stubborn, and Democrats had already picked him. Now, that mindset is shifting along with the rest of the political world. One person close to the campaign told Semafor that Trump’s “senior team has worked with” him “to prepare for any scenario.”

“We are ready,” this person said.

According to other Trump allies, Harris would be especially easy to define.

“She is the gaslighter-in-chief specific to ‘Oh, he’s fine. Oh, he’s in great shape,’” Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita said during a Politico-CNN Grill event on Thursday, previewing a potential attack line in a campaign against Harris.

“The border tsar?” said LaCivita, using a nickname Republicans gave Harris after Biden tasked her with talking to Mexican and Central American leaders about stopping illegal border-crossings. “Please! I’d love it.”

The convention ended with no clarity on the Democratic crisis, which encouraged Republicans. Missouri Attorney General Jay Ashcroft, a candidate for governor, said that Democrats would appear to be “election deniers” if they dumped Biden after every primary was over. “The Democrats are continually projecting their failings on the opposite party,” he said.

Matt Schlapp, the president of CPAC, joked that Democrats were so panicked about facing Trump that they might pick a nominee in a “tofu-filled room,” far away from voters.

David’s view

Trump closed out the RNC with what strategists had promised all week: A more somber speech, with multiple calls for unity, and a fair amount of unscripted filler. It was the long, languorous, acoustic version of a set usually played on fuzzed-out monitors.

The convention portrayed America as endangered and impoverished by his successor. Clips of Biden stumbling and stammering had played on convention screens all week, but Trump didn’t talk much about him, or about Harris.

What did that mean for Democrats? They talk more openly every day about Biden’s inability to beat Trump, which they attribute to his age, and not the party’s four-year record. Trump took the chance to reintroduce himself as a misunderstood, lied-about savior.

That message could work against any Democratic nominee; nostalgia for the Trump years had put him in a strong position even before Biden’s disastrous Atlanta debate. But Republicans clearly want Biden to stay in the race, draw the starkest contrast, and lose.

Notable

• Biden’s supporters have been encouraged by a model from the site FiveThirtyEight that shows him with even odds against Trump. Semafor’s Max Tani looks into why it’s so much more bullish on Biden than other forecasting models.