On Politics: There’s no zealot like a convert for Trump
Good evening from Milwaukee, where I had a relish tray last night. Today, I'm looking at how the Republican National Convention has become a conversion story. Then, we zoom into a light-blue state where Republicans think they have a shot in November.
There's no zealot like a Trump convert
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When Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio takes the stage in Milwaukee tonight to accept his party's nomination to be vice president, he will complete the final stage in his transformation from foil to acolyte of former President Donald Trump. His long history of disparaging Trump, whom he has called an "idiot" and "cultural heroin," does not make him less suited for elevation within his party. Rather, it makes him a better avatar for the tale Trump wants to tell. Vance is a political convert, whose remaking of himself and his political image in order to thrive in Trump's Republican Party proves and reinforces Trump's power. And he will serve as a capstone for a convention that has been a conversion story unto itself. Conversion is a defining feature of today's Republican Party, given how full it is of Republicans who did not much like Trump when he cannonballed into politics in 2016, and how far it has moved from the Reaganesque tenets that once defined it. The intraparty unity on display here is possible only because a lot of people have changed their minds about the former president over the past eight years. Trump himself, a former Democrat, has changed his politics, too. A team of former rivalsTrump cares little about whether his converts are doing so for pragmatic reasons or moral ones, just as long as their fealty is public, and over the course of this week, Trump has paraded his converts for all the country to see. There was Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, complaining last night about how a man he spent much of last year lambasting had been "demonized." There was Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, whose 2016 rivalry with Trump was brief — but whose Trump-bestowed nickname from that period, Little Marco, will probably last forever — praising the former president for having inspired a movement. And there was former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Trump's last rival for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, wryly reminding the convention audience that she had been invited here by Trump himself and gently advising the rest of the country that it's not too late for them to convert, too. "You don't have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him," she said. The Republicans who have resisted conversion have suffered for it. Many of them, like former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, are not here. Others, like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, have been booed on the convention floor. "They have to jump on board, or else they're going to be left behind," said Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, a former Democrat who switched parties and converted to Trumpism in the wake of Trump's first impeachment. "They understand, I think more now than ever, that like all things, parties evolve, and this party has evolved." The only shame is in disloyaltyHere, there is no shame in being new to the cause — only in being disloyal once you've joined it. On Monday, the model Amber Rose spoke of coming around to Trump after doing "research" about him at her father's behest. On Tuesday, Mayor Eric Johnson of Dallas, a longtime Democrat, told the convention why he had left the Democratic Party and decided to support Trump. Offstage, longtime members of the Republican establishment — like Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, who once helped the moderate Senator John McCain of Arizona plan for a presidential transition that never came — praised Trump at every chance. "He's the toughest and most resilient person I've ever worked with," Hagerty, who is seen as a potential cabinet pick in a second Trump administration, told reporters on Tuesday. Some of the converts my colleagues and I talked with here spoke uneasily of their new allegiance to Trump, aware that, in joining him, they were going against values they cared about. "I do not come to President Trump easily and quickly this time because of Jan. 6," said Matt Mayberry, a delegate from New Hampshire, who added that he had initially supported former Vice President Mike Pence's 2024 campaign. He had arrived at the convention as a delegate for Haley, but voted for Trump after she released her delegates to the former president. Mayberry's reasons hardly seemed spiritual. "I'm not a MAGA-flag-waving Republican," said Mayberry, who runs the New Hampshire Home Builders Association. "I'm a pragmatic Republican who wants the economy to get back to thriving again." A realignment of valuesBut many Trump supporters have undergone something deeper, something they describe as a genuine realignment of their values. Over the years, I have spoken with many who point to specific events that changed their worldviews, like the pandemic lockdowns or the claim that the 2020 election was stolen — a falsehood that they adhere to. And still more point to the indictments of Trump over the past year, which they see as proof of a persecution that has caused them to flock to his side. Take Gregg Sadwick, who is running for a House seat that includes Rochester, N.Y. Sadwick found Trump's entrance into politics jarring and was turned off by his coarse rhetoric and unbridled tweeting. He came to like Trump more during his presidency, he said, but found himself curious about DeSantis. The indictments of Trump, which have resulted in a criminal conviction in New York, have left Sadwick with no qualms about supporting Trump now. "I've gotten on his train because of all the lawfare stuff," Sadwick said, calling the prosecutions anti-American. "It was wrong." Billie Johnson, an alternate delegate from Madison, Wis., who voted for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and briefly was open to the idea of supporting DeSantis this year, said his conversion to Trump has only solidified because of the events of recent weeks. "Everything's increased my support. If you scripted it, you couldn't have scripted it better," he said. The question now is where the partywide conversion goes from here. And despite the cursory talk of national unity in Milwaukee, some Republicans discuss the next project of Trumpism as an effort to convert — rather than compromise with — voters who don't agree with them. "That's not how we're going to unite the country — show up at the 50-yard line, hold hands, sing 'Kumbaya,' and call it a day," Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and former presidential candidate, said this week at a policy forum just beyond the convention's gates. Instead, he suggested, Republicans would need to be uncompromising about their principles, to tell people about them and persuade the rest of America to agree with them. —Alyce McFadden contributed reporting.
The G.O.P. map expandsThe Republicans gathered in Milwaukee this week are feeling ebullient about the polls. It's not just that Trump is leading President Biden in most battleground states. There are signs he could make light-blue states competitive as well. My colleague Kellen Browning caught up with delegates and voters from one of those states — New Mexico — to explain why Republicans have reason to believe a state they haven't won since 2004 just might be in play this year. New Mexico hasn't been a major focus for Republican presidential candidates in recent years. But inside the convention center in Milwaukee this week, Steve Pearce, the chair of the New Mexico Republican Party, said that his is no flyover state. "We're going to make it competitive," Pearce said. Trump's campaign, he said, was "paying attention to us, they invested a lot of time and energy in 2020." There are several reasons for this, and some don't have to do with Trump. Trust in and enthusiasm for the government has ebbed in New Mexico, which has one of the highest poverty rates in the country and is still reeling from the destruction caused by the largest wildfire in state history in 2022. Democrats' voter registration advantage over Republicans has declined in recent years, and they worry that Hispanic voters, who make up a higher share of eligible voters in New Mexico than in any other state, could drift from Mr. Biden to Mr. Trump or Robert F. Kennedy, the third-party candidate who qualified for the New Mexico ballot this month. Mr. Biden could weigh on down-ballot Democrats in New Mexico, too. Representative Gabriel Vasquez won his district by just 1,350 votes in 2022, and faces a competitive contest again. Senator Martin Heinrich won re-election in 2018 by nearly 24 percentage points, but he was aided by the presence of Gary Johnson, the Libertarian former presidential candidate, on the ballot. Mr. Heinrich's campaign is anticipating a far closer race this time around against Nella Domenici, the daughter of longtime Republican Senator Pete Domenici. An internal poll conducted on behalf of the Domenici campaign last month found Ms. Domenici trailing by three points. Last week, I visited Albuquerque. It's a liberal city, but I found few Democrats or independents who said they were excited for Mr. Biden, or even likely to support him in November. Richard Lopez, 29, an independent and first-time voter, said he was eager to support Mr. Kennedy. "Trump has run, Biden has run — I feel like it's time for something new," Mr. Lopez said. Lori Funnell, a Democrat, voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but had qualms about doing so again. "Inevitably, I'll most likely end up voting for Biden if it seems like he has a chance," Ms. Funnell, 36, said. "But if it feels like I'm throwing my vote away, I'll probably throw it at a third party just so I can at least feel like I voted my conscience." —Kellen Browning Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you're enjoying what you're reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We'd love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
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