What to expect in Milwaukee

For a number of reasons this will not be a typical convention

Fueling up for a long week

I am on my way to Milwaukee to attend the Republican National Convention, and already this is promising to be a pretty different sort of convention than we usually see. But first, here are the main things we can expect at this event.

• Trump is going to roll out his vice presidential pick — most likely Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, or Florida Senator Marco Rubio. While the choice of running mate rarely matters much for the vote in November (at least outside the running mate’s home state), it would be a mistake to call this choice inconsequential. Considering Trump’s age, the recent assassination attempt, and the fact that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to run in 2028 should he win in 2024, this person could matter a great deal. Add to that the fact that Trump’s last running mate was the target of political violence directed by Trump himself. And on top of that, Trump’s running mate will be perceived as the heir to the movement within the party that he’s been carving out.

• There will be plenty of prime time speeches from prominent Republican leaders, including, notably, from former South Carolina Governor and presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who has clearly changed her tune since February. Reporting suggests that speakers are being discouraged from re-writing their speeches in the wake of Saturday’s shooting. Which means we may get a lot of the typical convention speeches lavishing praise on Trump and warning that America is dying under Biden’s globalist socialist anti-growth DEI agenda or something. The RNC speakers are in something of a box on how to rhetorically attack Biden, since they are simultaneously saying he’s weak and old and incompetent while desperately not wanting Democrats to replace him. I’ll be curious to see how they bridge that.

• There will be Trump’s nomination acceptance speech on Thursday. It’s silly to think that we’re going to see a whole new Donald Trump who unifies America. But it would also be surprising if getting shot didn’t have some effect on how a person thinks and talks about the world.

• The platform was already written and released and will likely not be discussed very much. Most speakers will likely avoid mentioning anything about Project 2025 and will probably try to steer conversations away from that when asked.

Obviously, the assassination attempt is weighing over this event, and there will be changes to the security approach within the city and the convention schedule. I am going, in part, to conduct interviews with some county party chairs and delegates, and already that’s proving challenging, since it’s difficult for me to get inside the security perimeter, and most delegates, it sounds, have been told not to leave it.

(The last convention I attended – the DNC in Denver in 2008 – was far different. There was tight security within the convention venue, but delegates were free and encouraged to leave during the day, explore downtown, go to restaurants, and more. This week’s convention may stand out for its lack of interaction between convention attendees and their host city.)

There’s a loose team of political scientists doing all sorts of studies of this convention. I look forward to reporting back after we’re all better able to figure out just what we have access to. Meanwhile, I encourage you to check out the most recent episode of the Power & Flour podcast on just what we can expect from this convention.