What Went Down On The First Night Of The Democratic National Convention

Well, tonight marked the first evening of our very first virtual convention. And it was … weird?

But it was also perfectly ordinary at times — it featured stump speeches from luminaries in the party, past and present, in addition to conversations with ordinary Americans that were, in some instances, very moving. There was the young woman who lost her father to the coronavirus because he hadn’t taken it seriously. And there was George Floyd’s family, who spoke about police killing their relative earlier this year.

Democrats didn’t shy away from putting either the pandemic or the protests against racial injustice front and center, and they capped the night with a keynote speech from Michelle Obama, who called on those who didn’t vote in 2016 to turn out in 2020, arguing that Trump “is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment.”

Of course, though, this was just the first night of four — and not all of the networks have covered the convention in the same way, making it even harder to know how much the convention will move the needle this year.

We’ll be back tomorrow to cover Night 2, but in the meantime, here’s the live blog crew’s headlines summarizing Night 1. If you want more, just scroll down to relive the live blog in all its chronological glory.

• Meena: The First Night Of The First Online DNC Was, Ummm, Well, Extremely 2020
• Nathaniel: Democrats Convene For Sometimes-Awkward Virtual Convention
• Julia: Democrats Emphasize Character And Unity
• Amelia: Michelle Obama And The Postal Service Get All The Attention On The First Night Of The DNC
• Seth: Democrats Emphasize Those Suffering in Trump’s America, Praise Biden’s Empathy
• Kaleigh: Like Everything Else In 2020, DNC Had A Lot Of Talk About COVID And Awkward Zoom Moments
• Geoffrey: Democrats Have Hit-Or-Miss Night Holding The First Virtual National Convention
• Emily: DNC’s Online Convention Still In Beta

Joe Biden is running against an unpopular president who gets poor marks from the public on the most important challenges of the day, principally the coronavirus pandemic and race relations. So unsurprisingly, much of tonight’s program featured Democratic leaders and regular people attacking Trump on his shortcomings. But importantly, they did spend a fair bit of time trying to reinforce the idea that Biden is the right person with the right attitude to take over the job of president. From anecdotes about his empathy to a segment on the people he met and befriended while riding Amtrak to Washington, D.C., the convention attempted to shore up confidence in Biden, and not just generate anger toward Trump.

This could have been much more of a disaster than it was, given gestures vaguely everything. But in the end, the Democrats managed to pull off a fairly smooth first night of virtual rallying that emphasized the sense of urgency many voters feel about this election. It’s undeniably a shift in mood and tone from four years ago, but did we expect anything less?

Two things stood out for me tonight. First, the night’s sharpest and most effective attacks on Trump focused on how Trump’s coronavirus response cost lives. Kristin Urquiza and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo were extremely effective at this. Second, Democrats made strong overtures to Black voters with speeches like Michelle Obama’s and the powerful moment of silence led by George Floyd’s brothers. They know that low Black turnout is a big reason why they lost in 2016.

Michelle Obama shows why she is a powerhouse and the keynote speaker on the first night. She’s the only speaker so far to generate enough volume on Twitter to get past the president, and she stayed much more positively received.

Billy Porter and Steven Stills finally bringing that zoom virtual background energy we’ve been waiting for.

I’d noticed that, too, Nate, when Barack Obama tweeted about “voting early” last week without specifying whether to do that in-person or by mail.

I imagine we might see more ambiguous messaging on that front from Democrats if the USPS continues to have issues.

Michelle didn’t use the phrases “Black turnout” or “Don’t vote for Kanye,” but they were clearly implied in her speech.

Yeah, Nate, in reaction to recent revelations about problems at the USPS, many Democrats have been singing a different tune, encouraging people to vote early in person or at least to drop off their mail ballots in person.

I think we can all agree the Zoom applause addition to these convention was a nice thought that does not work.

Obama saying vote “early … in person if we can” seems like an important change of emphasis from what I had previously understood the Democrats’ stance on this to be, which seemed more to encourage people to vote by mail.

This was a very strong speech. Basically, “I hate politics, but here I am. I said we have to go high, but we have to be honest about Trump’s shortcomings. We need to vote like our candidate is exciting — even if he’s not.”

Totally, Galen.

FWIW, I think it might be easier to give this kind of forceful speech not in front of a huge crowd of your fans who are really happy to see you. I’m just trying to think of how this would work on a convention floor. It’s not the kind of “say a line and wait for applause” speech we are used to.

We’re hearing a lot about Biden’s character tonight — his decency, his empathy. Contrast that with 2016, when we heard over and over again that Hillary Clinton was the most qualified presidential candidate ever. Nobody seems all that interested in talking about Biden’s policy chops tonight!

Obama says, “We have got to vote like we did in 2008 and 2012. We have to show up with the same level of passion and hope.” That is a pretty explicit appeal to Black voters, IMO.

Obama alludes to school shootings. I remember there was a time when it seemed like gun violence could be a major issue in this campaign.

Well, it sounds like there might be blue states and red states and Black America and white America and attacking people might be necessary after all. So the Obamas would like to extend and revise their remarks from 2004-2016.

This is a great point.

Hating politics might be one of the few things that unites regular people on the left and right.

Obama’s speech very much fits in with the “Make politics boring again” argument for electing Biden.

Obama tells voters that things “can and will get worse” if the country doesn’t “make a change in this election.” Remarkably, this is one of the most overtly anti-Trump speeches of the evening.

“You know I hate politics” is a hell of a signature line at a party convention. That’s where we’re at.

Obama: “It is what it is.” Oooh, good Trump callback.

Obama says Trump “is clearly in over his head.” Trump tweet incoming?

What are the chances that Trump can’t help himself and goes after Michelle Obama?

This is what most people will be watching tomorrow during the morning and daytime news shows.

“You know I hate politics.” Wow.

The 2020 update on Obama’s “going high” line: “Going high does not mean putting on a smile and saying nice things when confronted by viciousness and cruelty.”

Obama recalls the most famous line of her 2016 speech when she asks, “When others are going so low, does going high still really work?” (She says it does.)

Callback!

Yeah Amelia, I think part of it’s going to be the coverage surrounding the speech rather than the live viewership of it. As Nathaniel just pointed out, Michele Obama is pretty popular for a public figure in our polarized time, and so her comments could break through to less-engaged voters.

Michelle Obama is a very talented speaker and public emoter and always has been. I wrote a piece about her during her book tour that talked about this power — this “I hate politics” kind of political power she wields. She is very good at projecting “everywoman” when she’s actually far from it, for many reasons! But a forum like tonight reminds you of her real talent for speaking and her very particular place in American life.

If you’re trying to reach less-engaged voters (although you can certainly question whether they’d be spending their Monday night watching this), I kind of think this low-key, earnest version of the convention speech might be more effective? It feels much less like a political pageant, anyway.

Michelle Obama mentions Dwight Eisenhower, possibly a first for a Democratic convention. A big theme of the night — counteracted somewhat by the images surrounding the protests and discussions of police violence — has been reaching for cross-partisan patriotic themes and talking about maintaining American identity, values and greatness.

Obama mentioned that 2016 was a very close election. About 78,000 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin made the difference in the Electoral College. That worked out to about 0.06 percent of the 137 million votes cast.

I kinda think these conventions are like everything else during the pandemic, where you miss the live experience at first, especially if you’re a reporter who gets to go to these things — and let’s be honest, while there are a few advantages of the virtual format, they are outweighed by the disadvantages — but before too long you get more used to it and judge it on its own merits.

Yeah, Amelia — all the rhetoric of this convention is going to be toned down by necessity, I think. “The dream shall never die” this ain’t.

Obama making the “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” argument here pretty directly.

Hard not to cast our minds back to Michelle Obama’s speech at the 2016 DNC, which was one of the more memorable, knockout political speeches in recent history with her “When they go low, we go high” line.

This speech has a kind of homey feel, and it’s striking to see Michelle Obama in her home rather than at a podium. More of a personal, heart-to-heart vibe than the usual lofty rhetoric we’d be getting right now from a stage.

Guys, I miss the signs.

Obama: “Four years ago, too many people chose to believe their votes wouldn’t matter.” That feels like an appeal to Black voters to vote in the numbers they did for her husband.

Michelle Obama has experienced the political benefits and curses of being first lady, which Julia Azari and I wrote about here. She could avoid many controversial issues and largely be seen as above politics, but she was also saddled somewhat with her husband’s public reputation and was never really free to take stances distinct from or critical of his.

Thank you, Clare. The chyron covering it on CNN.

Michelle Obama is wearing a (very delicate) “V-O-T-E” necklace.

True, Nathaniel, but a lot of people within the Democratic Party remain convinced that Sanders supporters were at least partly responsible for the 2016 outcome, whether that’s true or not.

I agree with folks saying that Sanders’s support for the nominee in 2020 feels more full-throated, even though the Democrats’ platform isn’t that much more progressive than it was in 2016. It again commits to the $15 an hour minimum wage and to adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act, which isn’t Sanders’s (or several other candidates’) health care position. That said, the platform does state, “We are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and those who support a Medicare for All approach.”

The idea that Sanders supporters threw the 2016 election to Trump was always kind of overblown. According to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, only 12 percent of Sanders primary voters voted for Trump in the general election.

The question I will try to contemplate more, and don’t have an answer for now, is whether Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and obviously sought the party nomination, sounds more like he’s in the same party with Biden than Kasich did. Both have pointed out their disagreements with the nominee.