Republican reckoning: RNC delegates grapple with ’emotional whiplash’ of 2024 race

What a difference a month can make this election year.

One month ago in Milwaukee, former President Donald Trump made his triumphant return to the national political spotlight during the Republican National Convention, the undisputed front-runner in the 2024 race after surviving an assassination attempt. But with President Joe Biden cast aside over concerns about his age, mental acuity, and electoral prospects, his replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, has put battlegrounds thought lost to Trump back into play amid a surge in enthusiasm.

Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist, described the Republican convention as the first of his political career where the party felt it was ahead, citing previous nail-biter presidential elections and Trump’s own come-from-behind victory in 2016.

“There was euphoria,” Jennings told the Washington Examiner. “There was just this view that he was ascendant and that Biden was a spent force, and everybody knew it. And you throw on top of that Hulkamania, and people walked out of there ready to rip their own shirts off.”

But four weeks later, it is now “a 50-50 race” and “Trump’s going to have to fight for it,” according to Jennings.

“It’s much more of a knife fight in a phone booth as opposed to a coronation,” he said. “So Republicans are dealing with the emotional whiplash of that.”

For Brandon Maly, a Republican convention delegate from Wisconsin and the chairman of the Dane County Republicans, it is as if a “political earthquake” has taken place.

“They played chess on us,” Maly told the Washington Examiner, judging that the score against Biden was 1-1, given he dropped out of the race. “They changed the game up on us.”

Jennings criticized Harris’s ascension as “a ruthless and audacious thing” Democrats did, adding it was “offensive” but it was the “only choice” Democrats had “because they were beaten.”

“Republicans knew that, and that’s why they were feeling so good about the race,” he said.

Harris’s rise has placed battleground states such as Georgia in reach of Democrats, per Maly, particularly because of her appeal to black voters who were “unenthused, uninspired” by Biden, though he scrutinized the vice president for not making herself available to the press.

“Talk about ‘democracy dies in darkness,’” he said. “Hello, we have someone that zero people voted for and is not getting any questions. Why has she not had a press conference? Why does she not do TV?”

But in other battleground states, including Michigan and, to a lesser extent, Minnesota, the home state of Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), Republicans remain confident in Trump and his campaign.

Michigan’s Oakland County Republican Party Chairman Vance Patrick downplayed the likelihood of Harris granting an interview before the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago, predicting she will “stay silent” so she can “ride” her confab bounce, though he added the convention is poised to be disrupted by pro-Gaza, pro-Palestinian protesters, many of whom call Michigan home.

But Patrick contended Harris’s ascendance has motivated Michigan Republicans “even more” than before with Biden.

“They realize how important this election is, and they’re going to do everything they can,” Patrick told the Washington Examiner. “I’ve told so many people, I go, just having a Trump sticker on the back of your truck isn’t good enough. Start the conversation because that’s the only way we’re going to get enough people to register to vote, get out there and vote, early voting, absentee voting, and day-of-the-election voting. That’s what it’s going to take.”

But Patrick did echo advice from the likes of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) about Trump needing to concentrate on Harris’s policy and not her personality.

“That’s just Trump’s personality as a contractor, as a New Yorker,” he said. “But sticking to the issues, I will admit that is what a lot of people are saying. Stick to the issues because you can win this hands down by sticking to the issues, not necessarily going after personal attacks.”

Another Republican strategist underscored McCarthy’s advice, arguing Trump “has got to get more disciplined or we could make a big mistake this fall and elect a woman who will be surrounded by radical Leftists.”

“On the ground here in Minnesota, we are truly fired up,” Minnesota RNC National Committeeman AK Kamara told the Washington Examiner, citing a rally that Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Trump’s vice presidential nominee, hosted in St. Cloud, Minnesota, shortly after the convention.

“Meanwhile, the Democrats forced their democratically nominated candidate Joe Biden out of the race and undemocratically swapped in VP Kamala Harris without any debate or input from their base,” Kamara wrote. “Then came the announcement of radical extreme Leftist policy supporting Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, as her VP pick.”

“These developments, along with national media scrutiny on Walz’s failures to protect Minnesotans during the George Floyd riots, lies about his rank, radical extreme Leftist bills he signed as governor, and claims of stolen valor, have only further energized us here in Minnesota,” he said.