Trump’s RNC plans little altered by shooting, with one audience in mind: Dem-leaning swing voters

MILWAUKEE — Republicans gathering in Milwaukee are almost certain to use the assassination attempt on Donald Trump to reinforce his image of defiance and strength, as they already have on social media and in public statements. The former president himself said he planned to use his speech as “chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together.”

“The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would’ve been two days ago,” he said in an interview with the Washington Examiner .

But the central thrust of the convention — with a heavy focus on appealing to traditionally Democratic-leaning demographic groups — will not change, according to a Republican strategist close to the campaign.

The shooting at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania — which left Trump bloodied, killed one member of the crowd and injured two others — upended the presidential campaign, animating Trump’s base and driving the political conversation across the country. It is almost certain to color programming this week.

But Trump still traveled to Milwaukee on Sunday evening, his schedule unchanged. And aides are still discussing revealing his running mate selection on stage on Monday. The former president’s advisers view the convention and its prime-time programming as an opportunity primarily to appeal to a general election audience, laying out plans for a convention that will highlight support from Black and Hispanic voters and union workers.

It’s an effort to make further inroads with non-traditional GOP voters who turned against him during his failed 2020 reelection campaign — and who rejected the Trump-aligned Republican Party in the midterms two years later.

Trump is expected to argue at the convention that, with his experience, he will be a better president than he was in his first term, according to a second person familiar with the plans.

The Trump campaign is still messaging around the assassination attempt. Trump’s wife, Melania Trump condemned the shooter as a “monster” who saw her husband as an “inhuman political machine.” The campaign launched a GoFundMe page to help victims and families following the shooting. And Trump's political operation sent out a fundraising appeal with the words : “I am Donald J. Trump and I will NEVER SURRENDER.”

In a memo to staff on Sunday , top Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said, “It’s is our fervent hope that this horrendous act will bring our team, and indeed the nation, together in unity and we must renew our commitment to safety and peace for our country.”

But the program for the convention provides a window into Trump’s electoral strategy — to keep up his populist appeal while peeling off voters who typically vote Democratic and who could swing key Rust Belt states and suburban areas in November.

The campaign’s roster of speakers for the convention includes Teamsters International Union President Sean O’Brien and rapper and TV personality Amber Rose. East Palestine, Ohio Mayor Trent Conaway, whose blue collar village was the site of a disastrous 2023 train derailment, is also slated to speak . And speaking right before Trump on Thursday night is the chief executive of Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White .

“We're in the process right now, I think, of assembling a lineup that really the Republican Party has never put together before,” said Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley. “We really, truly are trying to reach out to every American family, every American voter. And the choice of speakers is going to reflect that.”

Trump himself has been involved in designing the program and has been a proponent of showcasing his backing from “everyday Americans,” Whatley said.

On Friday afternoon, the Trump campaign unveiled a list of more than two dozen of those speakers — a group that includes Nicaraguan and Peruvian immigrants, a business manager for a Steamfitters union and a former corrections officer who will be voting for Trump for the first time. Additional speakers are still to be announced, organizers say. Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and the RNC co-chair, has teased that “ unlikely people ” will address the convention.

“This Republican convention is very different from the past,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin. “President Trump, as America’s blue collar billionaire, has recreated the Republican Party into the party of working men and women. The caddies are now running the country club.”

Trump’s 2024 convention — which is expected to draw 50,000 delegates, guests and members of the media — will be starkly different from his 2016 one. During that convention, anti-Trump forces launched a failed, last-ditch effort to deprive him of the nomination. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz , the runner-up in that year’s GOP primary, delivered a speech in which he didn’t endorse Trump and instead told voters to “ vote your conscience .”

This time around, Trump is expected to sail through Monday’s delegate roll call vote — likely greeted by hand-picked delegates here as a hero after the shooting. The lineup of speakers will showcase the extent to which Trump has solidified his hold over the Republican Party since the 2016 convention.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who finished second place in the primary, has released her delegates to Trump and will speak on Tuesday. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another former 2024 rival, is also slated to speak.

The themes each day are reflective of some of Trump’s main talking points on the campaign trail, including inflation, crime and curbing illegal immigration.

Further underscoring the MAGA-fication of the convention will be the heavy presence of Trump’s family. Lara Trump is expected to address delegates. Donald Trump Jr., the ex-president’s eldest son, is scheduled to speak on Wednesday evening, prior to the vice presidential nominee. Ivanka Trump will be attending the convention, although according to a person familiar with her schedule, she will not be speaking.

Melania Trump, the former first lady, is expected to attend, although a speaking role has not been confirmed. The limited public appearances she has made in recent months have been at political fundraisers held by the Log Cabin Republicans, a pro-LGBTQ+ conservative group backing Trump. That included just a week ago, when the former first lady appeared at their fundraiser in New York just hours after Republican officials revised the party platform to remove language about marriage being between a man and a woman. The decision — which enraged some evangelicals — represented a sea-change for the party.

Bill White, a donor and longtime friend of Trump, who is active with the Log Cabin Republicans, recalled remarks by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 convention, riling up the crowd as he bashed Democrats’ support of gay Americans.

“We've come a long way,” White said.

“You're going to hear, thematically, about outreach to Hispanic Americans, to gay Americans, to African Americans, to Asian Americans, and to groups that are traditionally Democratic,” White said. “That includes the unions.

“If that isn't Donald Trump disrupting the process once again in a very beautiful, coalition type way, I don't know what is,” White said.

Neither of the last two living Republican nominees, George W. Bush and Sen. Mitt Romney , both of whom have been critical of Trump, will be attending or speaking. Nor will Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence.

Like with Trump’s moderated position on abortion — rejecting the party’s official support in recent years of a 20-week federal limit in favor of states deciding their own laws — some evangelical Christians have voiced outrage at the new platform’s removal of language about traditional marriage being between a man and a woman.

But those social conservative leaders, whose lobbying to preserve the RNC’s old platform on abortion and marriage did not succeed last week, have lost some leverage with the party. Trump enjoys overwhelming support from evangelical voters, despite disappointing them on abortion. It’s his effort to pull in new voters who haven’t previously voted Republican, allies say, that’s likely to be reflected at this week’s convention.

Calling the current moment a “generational political realignment that hasn't been seen in 60 years,” John Fredericks, a conservative radio host and Trump ally, said remarks made from the convention stage will offer “a blueprint” for how the Republican Party looks moving forward.

“And who are we looking to reach? We're looking to reach disaffected Democrats, show the working class who have been disaffected and ignored that we stand for them,” Fredericks said. “And we want to be able to assure women that the economy is going to be better, their lives are going to be better, their children are going to be better off.”