What Went Down On Night 2 Of The RNC

Last night felt more normal than I had expected as the program wore on, with Nikki Haley and Tim Scott closing up the evening. I’m watching for the dynamic I felt that defined the 2016 RNC, with lots of unusual speakers and the chanting of “Lock her up!” (about Hillary Clinton). Much harder to achieve that effect virtually, but I am waiting for that surreal Trumpism feeling.

In our data, Republican convention speeches have historically been much more likely than Democrats to include references to American exceptionalism or threats to the American way of life. That pattern seems to be continuing this year.

We’ve got a lot of people on the schedule who will likely be talking directly to white evangelical Protestants — including famous evangelist Billy Graham’s granddaughter as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is delivering a pretaped speech from Jerusalem. Christian conservatives are a crucial demographic for Trump, to put it mildly, but they didn’t get a lot of shout-outs last night. So I’ll be curious to see how the convention speaks to them.