For eight chaotic years, Republicans battled in public and private, fighting over Donald J. Trump’s polarizing personality, his divisive policies and his history of electoral defeats through lawsuits and leadership battles, felony convictions and suburban defections.
Yet even before a single balloon has dropped at their national convention this week, Republicans have united — seemingly without reservation — behind the man and his message. Across downtown Milwaukee, delegates, officials and lawmakers appeared to be taking a victory lap in the middle of a race that many believe is breaking their way, galvanized by a would-be assassin’s bullet and the chaos gripping the rival party.
Even Mr. Trump’s most potent Republican primary foe, Nikki Haley, was greeted on Tuesday with a standing ovation as she testified to his fitness to return to the White House — an issue she had often questioned on the campaign trail.
“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity,” Ms. Haley said, adding: “I’m here tonight because we have a country to save. And a unified Republican Party is essential for saving her.”
It is a party-wide evolution that would have been difficult to envision eight years ago, when Mr. Trump first burst onto the Republican stage, or as recently as this spring, when the party was recovering from a bruising primary contest and the serial humiliations of a dysfunctional House majority that struggled to select its own leadership. Then, Mr. Trump was a liability and not the party’s great unifier.
Now, the shift in mood was striking: It has been decades since those at any Republican convention felt quite so confident — even optimistic — that they had the right candidate, the right causes and the right moment.
“This is a party that is completely united right now, I think — frankly, united like we’ve not seen in generations,” said Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, citing as evidence Ms. Haley’s presence at the convention, which came about after the shooting on Saturday.
From the careful choreography to the elaborate staging, political conventions are exercises in party pageantry — made-for-TV dramas designed to inspire the party faithful and drive a victorious narrative to the nation. But this year in Milwaukee, such typical manufactured fellowship has intensified.
Mr. Trump, not content to attend the convention only for the final days, as is customary, has taken part in the events from the outset — watching the tributes from the front row of an elevated platform, grinning broadly and at times appearing moved by the proceedings.
Speaker after speaker on Tuesday bent their knees, offering tribute to a man who had once insulted them, belittled them and, eventually, defeated them.
Senator Ted Cruz thanked “God almighty” for protecting the man who once insinuated that Mr. Cruz’s wife was ugly and his father had been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota praised the political power of the man who had gleefully derided him as a “Globalist RINO” as the former president tanked his effort to become House speaker last year.
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, for whom Mr. Trump coined the nickname Little Marco, said the former president had “inspired a movement” among working men and women. “These are the Americans,” he said, “who wear the red hats and wait for hours under the blazing sun to hear President Trump speak.”
And Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whom Mr. Trump mocked mercilessly for the height of his boot heels, his polling numbers and his alleged pudding-eating techniques, praised Mr. Trump for “standing up” for America.
“Donald Trump has been demonized,” the governor said. “He’s been sued. He’s been prosecuted, and he nearly lost his life. We cannot let him down, and we cannot let America down.”
The parade of former opponents is expected to continue on Wednesday, when a man who privately fretted just eight years ago that Mr. Trump could become “America’s Hitler” stands side by side with him on the ticket. With his new position as Mr. Trump’s running mate, that man, Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, vaults to the forefront of a party remade in the former president’s image.
As Democrats debated whether President Biden should be their party’s nominee, Republicans were a party unfettered by doubt. They presented a united front, and many rounds of I-told-you-so’s. Republicans had been proven right, they claimed, about the border, about Covid pandemic lockdowns, about inflation, about Mr. Biden’s mental acuity, about antisemitism on college campuses.
“My friends, we are watching the principles of faith, family, freedom that once defined our nation now being trampled underfoot by the radical left,” Speaker Mike Johnson told the crowd. “As President Trump raised his fist and gave a rally cry on Saturday, now is our time to fight, and we will.”
On the floor of the convention Tuesday night, Mark Muller, an alternate from Kansas, described a mood of confidence that was not limited to the “die-hards” in Milwaukee. “It’s like a spiritual, historical battle, and we all feel it,” he said.
“This is our Waterloo,” Mr. Muller said. “We are all believers, but the people I know who have never been engaged in politics are getting engaged.”
As Democrats continue to struggle to unify around Mr. Biden, broad swaths of Republicans are rallying around the former president. Polling conducted by The New York Times and Siena College after the debate showed that 83 percent of likely Republican voters wanted Mr. Trump to remain their nominee, compared with just 48 percent of likely Democratic voters who said the same about Mr. Biden.
So far, there has been no public polling to give an indication of how the race might have shifted since the attack. Political history suggests Mr. Trump’s support would rise after the Republican National Convention, even without the assassination attempt.
Milwaukee has become a gathering of conservatives, foreign and domestic. Boris Johnson, the former prime minister of England who resigned in disgrace in 2022 and whose Conservative Party was flatly rejected by British voters this month, traveled to Milwaukee for the convention. When he appeared outside a hotel downtown on Tuesday, dozens of Republicans standing in a security line broke out in a cheer.
Gerald Malloy, a Republican delegate from Vermont, was thrilled by the sighting, but said that he thought American conservatives were on track for a very different fate in November.
“Yesterday was just fantastic,” Mr. Malloy said, recalling the experience of being on the convention floor when Trump appeared wearing an ear bandage. “Everyone there could feel the entire country starting to make the turn to go in the right direction.”
Chris Ager, New Hampshire’s G.O.P. chairman, said there was a feeling of extreme confidence among Republicans after the events of the past few weeks, starting with the debate and growing after Mr. Trump survived Saturday’s assassination attempt and his classified documents case was dismissed.
“I think it’s the perfect mix, or the stars aligning,” he said. “I was not as confident only two weeks ago.”
Of course, unity is in the eye of the beholder. Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida was part of a rare tense exchange on the convention floor, telling the former House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, whose ouster Mr. Gaetz orchestrated, “You would get booed off stage.” Another attendee told Mr. Gaetz, “Shut up, Gaetz.”
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — with Mr. Gaetz, an architect of the party’s congressional internecine conflicts — told a reporter outside that she did not rule out party unity.
Ms. Greene was not interested, however, in cooperating across the aisle.
“When Joe Biden and the Democrats produce actions of unity, that’ll be something that I’ll start to listen to,” she said. “But right now I haven’t seen any of that. Hell no, I’m not cuddling with Democrats.”
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