Good morning, Early Birds. The Republican National Convention is being held a few blocks from where Theodore Roosevelt — another former president seeking to return to the White House — was shot in 1912. Like Donald Trump, Roosevelt survived the attempted assassination. Send tips to earlytips@washpost.com. Thanks for waking up with us.
In today’s edition … Meet Trump’s running mate … Biden denies losing ground after debate … but first …
Trump is riding a political high
Donald Trump was officially nominated yesterday to be the Republican presidential nominee in a sea of red at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. It was a triumphant moment for the former president, who lost to President Biden four years ago and is riding the wave of an incredible turn of events over the past few weeks that have inverted the contours of the 2024 race.
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Since the apparent assassination attempt just two days ago, it’s hard to find a Republican at the convention who doesn’t think that Trump was saved by God. Divine intervention was part of the plan, Republican delegates and speakers said.
Here’s a little of what they said:
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of Trump’s staunchest supporters on Capitol Hill, thanked God “that his hand was on President Trump,” whom she called “the founding father of the ‘America First’ movement.”
- “The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) said. “Listen, if you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now.”
- “An American lion got back up on his feet, and he roared!” Scott said to thunderous applause.
Republicans tied Trump to God as some elements of the Republican Party, including Russ Vought, Trump’s former budget director, are pushing for the country to move toward Christian nationalism.
Trump played into the image. He walked into the delegate hall with bandaged right ear as Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the U.S.A.”
Someone shouted, “Praise the Lord,” and the crowd start chanting “Fight, Fight, Fight,” said our colleague Isaac Arnsdorf, who was on the convention floor at the time. Trump yelled “Fight,” with his fist in the air, when he stood back up at Saturday’s rally in Pennsylvania after gunshots erupted.
Trump’s summer
But it’s not just dodging death. Trump’s incredibly lucky summer started when the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that presidential actions have complete immunity, threatening to upend the criminal cases against him. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon threw out his criminal classified documents case yesterday in Florida, just hours before the convention was gaveled open. The Wall Street Journal also reported yesterday that Elon Musk will donate $45 million per month to a pro-Trump super PAC. And for the two weeks before, the Democratic Party was publicly questioning President Biden’s ability to beat Trump in November.
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- “He comes into this convention riding on a political high,” said Marc Short, a former top aide to former vice president Mike Pence. “His defiant response to a near-assassination I think rallies his supporters and makes a tremendous contrast to the Biden campaign — one of strength versus feebleness … and decline.”
Yvonne Clouser, a delegate for Trump from Texas who chairs the Bexar County GOP, noticed support for Trump solidify after his debate with Biden late last month. But after Saturday’s assassination attempt, she saw enthusiasm among Republicans seal behind Trump.
“It’s divine intervention. Period,” she said.
The twice-impeached, criminally convicted former president, who faced some defections from the GOP immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, has fomented an extraordinary political return. It is a major about-face from his first Republican nomination convention in 2016. (The 2020 convention was canceled because of the coronavirus.) Then, Republicans were divided and a faction was still resistant to Trump.
Now, the party’s base, fully in thrall to Trump after eight years, is firmly behind him. He remade the Republican Party’s official platform to reflect his own words. It is a document full of populist economic policies and foreign policy isolationism. And he chose a vice-presidential nominee who, in a matter of just a few years, completely reversed his political beliefs to fit Trump’s.
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Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who is running for an open Senate seat, said today’s convention was “night and day” compared with the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Back then, delegates discussed possibly removing Trump from the ballot. Banks’s current vibe check: There is united support for Trump within the party after the former president devoted time to “building the Republican Party to be the party of Trump.”
The campaign
Meet Trump’s running mate: J.D. Vance
Trump announced Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate yesterday, continuing the first-term senator’s meteoric political rise. Vance won his Senate seat — his first political race — in 2022 and took office in 2023, running as a staunch supporter of Trump after having established himself as a critic of the former president during the 2016 campaign.
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Vance served in the Marines and worked as a corporate lawyer, venture capitalist and author before entering politics. His memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis,” brought him to national prominence in 2016.
It was during his book tour for “Hillbilly Elegy” that Vance was critical of Trump, calling himself “a ‘Never Trump’ guy” and writing in an article for the Atlantic that Trump was “cultural heroin.”
He transformed politically over the next few years — enough to even win Trump’s endorsem*nt in his 2022 Senate run — and grew a beard that one friend suggested was motivated by the boyish-looking Vance’s desire to have a “kind of severe masculinism thing. He looks like Donald Trump Jr.”
Vance’s selection as Trump’s running mate has reportedly alarmed more traditionally conservative members of the party, who prefer the typical Republican support for free-market capitalism.
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- “The first-term senator has embraced a more active role for government intervention in the economy than most Republicans, emerging as a leader of a minority faction among GOP senators that also includes Sens. Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.),” reports our colleague Jeff Stein. “Vance has praised President Biden’s antitrust crusader at the Federal Trade Commission, called for a higher minimum wage and even once called for raising taxes on corporations — all positions anathema to conservatives.”
Donald Trump Jr. pushed heavily for Vance, reportedly impressed by “Hillbilly Elegy” and Vance’s isolationist stance on aid to Ukraine. The elder Trump is said to have been approving of Vance’s television appearances in which he defended the former president.
- “In private conversations, Trump regularly mentioned Vance’s academic credentials and said he liked his youth, in a race defined partially by both candidates’ advanced age,” our colleagues Isaac Arnsdorf, Josh Dawsey and Marianne LeVine report. “He also thought Vance would not publicly break with him like Pence did after four years of loyal service, when he refused to cooperate with Trump’s efforts to keep himself in office despite losing the 2020 election.
But, with Trump ever interested in optics, Vance’s name may have also played a role in his selection — Trump has said he likes short, punchy names like his own.
More coverage of Vance from the Post:
- J.D. Vance’s journey from a ‘Never Trump’ guy to Trump’s VP pick. By Amy B. Wang and Meryl Kornfield.
- 6 things to know about J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate. By Niha Masih and Frances Vinall.
- What are J.D. Vance’s plans for the economy? By Rachel Siegel and Jeff Stein.
- Trump chooses a vice president who would do what Mike Pence wouldn’t. By Philip Bump.
- Trump chooses Sen. J.D. Vance, a former critic, as his vice-presidential pick. By Meryl Kornfield and Marianne LeVine.
From across the web:
- With J.D. Vance As Vice President, Trump Puts the New Right on the Ballot. By Politico’s Ian Ward.
- How J.D. Vance Became the Veepstakes Favorite. By the Dispatch’s John McCormack.
- What J.D. Vance really believes. By Vox’s Zack Beauchamp.
At the White House
Biden denies losing ground after debate
Biden sat down for his second national interview since his halting debate performance June 27 that forced the Democratic Party to grapple with whether he should stay in the race.
In an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt on Monday, Biden remained defiant, declaring that nothing has changed since congressional Democrats debated the merits of his campaign last week on Capitol Hill.
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Holt asked Biden why congressional leaders, such as Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), continue to say he must make a decision — a statement many Democrats consider a subtle nudge to the president to step aside. Biden has doubled down on staying in the race, but he deflected the question to talk instead about recent polls.
- “We are in a situation where if you look at all the polling data, the polling data shows a lot of different things, but there’s no wide gap between us,” Biden said. “It’s essentially a toss-up race.”
It is those polls, however, that many Democrats point to as evidence that Biden should step aside, because he is either losing in key battleground states or putting Democratic strongholds — such as Virginia, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll — in play.
Biden’s insistence that the polls are fine is a point of concern for many Democratic lawmakers and strategists, who worry he is only listening to a small number of aides who are limiting the amount of factual information he receives, Michael Scherer, Tyler Pager, Toluse Olorunnipa and Leigh Ann report.
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“Two Democratic strategists involved in the president’s reelection effort said Biden needs to be hearing more directly from the top officials on his own campaign, as well as from his own polling team,” they report.
“Listening to younger, more fresh voices would be helpful,” said one of the strategists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters.
The campaign
Democratic Senate candidates are outraising Republicans
Democrats outraised their GOP rivals in each of the seven most competitive Senate races in the second quarter, even as several Republicans cut their campaigns six- and seven-figure checks.
Four Democratic Senate candidates raised about twice as much or more as their likely Republican opponents, according to newly filed disclosures; one of them raised more than three times as much. And all seven Democrats had more money in their campaign accounts on June 30.
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The fundraising advantage is a bright spot for the party as some Senate Democrats worry that Biden’s struggling campaign will hurt them in November.
But the flagship Republican super PAC involved in Senate races outraised its Democratic counterpart in the second quarter. Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the Republican super PAC, raised $60.2 million — including $10 million checks from Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer — while Senate Majority PAC (SMP), the Democratic super PAC, raised $44.3 million.
SMP still has a cash advantage, with $124.3 million on hand to SLF’s $117 million.
- Arizona: Rep. Ruben Gallego, the likely Democratic nominee, raised $10.5 million, with $9.2 million on hand. Kari Lake, the likely Republican nominee, raised $4.3 million, with $2.8 million on hand. (Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, isn’t running for reelection.)
- Michigan: Rep. Elissa Slotkin, the likely Democratic nominee for the seat that Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow is relinquishing, raised $6.5 million, with $9.6 million on hand. Former congressman Mike Rogers, the likely Republican nominee, raised $2.1 million, with $2.5 million on hand.
- Montana: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester raised $10.6 million, with $10.9 million on hand. Tim Sheehy, the Republican nominee, raised $5.3 million, including $400,000 he loaned to his campaign last month. His campaign had $3.2 million on hand.
- Nevada: Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen raised $7.6 million, with $9.5 million on hand. Sam Brown, the Republican nominee, raised $4.1 million, with $3.1 million on hand.
- Ohio: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown raised $12.8 million, with $10.7 million on hand. Bernie Moreno, the Republican nominee, raised $4.4 million, with $4.5 million on hand after a competitive primary. Moreno, who previously loaned his campaign $4.5 million, didn’t put in any more of his own money in the second quarter.
- Pennsylvania: Democratic Sen. Bob Casey raised $8 million, with $8.4 million on hand. David McCormick, the likely GOP nominee, raised $6.7 million, including nearly $2.1 million he loaned his campaign last month. His campaign had $8 million on hand.
- Wisconsin: Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin raised $7.5 million, with $7.3 million on hand. Eric Hovde, the likely Republican nominee, raised $7.3 million, including $5 million he loaned his campaign last month. His campaign has $5.4 million on hand.
What we’re watching
In the courts
The jury in the corruption trial of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is set to return today after deliberating for its first full day yesterday without reaching a verdict, our colleagues Salvador Rizzo, Shayna Jacobs and El Calabrese report.
The Media
Must reads
From The Post:
- Teamsters president delivers fiery address at RNC, as Republicans flirt with populism. By Lauren Kaori Gurley.
- Jan. 6 marchers at RNC Convention complicate efforts to avoid subject. By Isaac Arnsdorf, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Josh Dawsey.
- Melania Trump absent on first night of the Republican convention. By Maegan Vazquez.
- Fact-checking Day 1 of the 2024 Republican National Convention. By Glenn Kessler.
- Swing states get prime spots on the RNC convention floor — except one. By Hannah Dormido, Kati Perry, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, Ricky Carioti, Adrián Blanco and Tim Meko.
- Donations to Trump and Biden spiked after debate, new reports show. By Maeve Reston, Clara Ence Morse and Theodoric Meyer.
- Dismissal draws new scrutiny to Judge Cannon’s handling of Trump case. By Justin Jouvenal.
From across the web:
- Police warned Secret Service of a suspicious person at Trump rally before gunman opened fire, source says. By NBC News’s Julia Ainsley, Jonathan Dienst, Tom Winter, Daniel Arkin and Sarah Fitzpatrick
- Israel in Talks Over Withdrawing From Egypt-Gaza Border, Officials Say. By the New York Times’s Patrick Kingsley, Adam Rasgon, Vivian Wang and Thomas Fuller.
Viral
Could a guy who titled his memoir “On the House” make it in the Senate?
— Caleb Smith (@CalebJSmith) July 15, 2024The governor of Ohio appoints in the case of a Senate vacancy.@SpeakerBoehner is still a resident of Ohio.
I'm just saying...
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