The pandemic has ruined the president’s economic policy, his fundamental weapon against Biden, who scores him eight points on average in polls
Donald Trump faces as of this Monday at the Republican National Convention a moment of extraordinary importance for his electoral aspirations. With the evangelical vote in hand, it is time for the president to try to snatch his rival, Joe Biden, the moderate electorate that could derail his re-election, since his great weapon, the booming economic situation of the country thanks to his reform to favor of big business, has been ruined by the coronavirus.
The four-day convention was originally scheduled to take place in Charlotte, North Carolina, but the president moved most of the convention events to Jacksonville, Florida, and Washington, D.C. after a dispute with the governor over security protocols related to the coronavirus.
The president is expected to travel in person to Charlotte in the next few hours to make an appearance at some of the events, but everything seems to indicate that he will finally accept his nomination on the south lawn of the White House next Thursday. However, since his administration it has been pointed out that the plans could change at any time.
In addition to Vice President Mike Pence and the Trump family – his wife, Melania, and their children Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr – the convention is expected to also include several prominent Conservative leaders, including South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.
Also expected to speak is Nick Sandmann, a former student at Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky, known for going head-to-head with a Native American during a protest in 2019. Also featured will be the couple of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, known for brandishing their weapons to keep protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement away from their mansion in St. Louis.
EIGHT POINTS
Polls give Biden an average of eight points ahead, a forecast that even the Democratic candidate does not want to applaud, aware of the turnaround in the polls in the 2016 elections.
Trump has prepared the ground in recent days by accusing Biden of “an attempt on God”, trying to take arms away from the Americans and impose a socialist policy, but few miss that Biden is considered a devout Catholic and moderate liberal, criticized by the progressive sector of his Democratic party.
This does not seem to matter to Trump, who has demonized his opponent. “I am the only thing between the American dream and total chaos. It is what it is,” Trump said last Friday in an appearance before his supporters.
Yet Trump needs more than his usual abrasive and belligerent rhetoric. Unemployment is in the double digits and polls show significant disappointment among moderate Republican voters about their handling of the pandemic, which has killed nearly 180,000 people across the country.
This has motivated Trump to find himself fighting battles that at the beginning of the year were unthinkable in traditionally Republican states, and lag behind in the most important of all, the “swing states”, those with an electorate so diverse that it is impossible to venture by who will choose in the November elections.
His campaign has a factor in its favor: Unlike Biden, Trump does generate attraction for himself among the electorate. His opponent is considered, in the worst case scenario, as a necessary evil to defeat him, but the current president of the United States has shown that his personality has mobilized the most conservative and reactionary bases of his electorate. It remains to reach the rest.
