Has Donald Trump shown he can beat Joe Biden?

There will be nothing pleasant about the final days of this already ugly campaign, writes Andrew Buncombe

Donald Trump at the White House after giving his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention (EPA)

What have we learned? After two party conventions, eight nights of speeches, one sitting president and one former vice president, one calamari chef and an endless number of comments on social media, what have we actually uncovered?

Most crucially, has Donald Trump revealed whether he can beat Joe Biden? The short answer is yes. The slightly longer answer is yes, he probably has.

Party nominating conventions are a strange thing at any time. It is when the party has to put on its smartest clothes, brush its hair and make it and its candidate presentable to as many as people as possible.

This is incredibly difficult. In a nation where there are only two main parties, if people are even going to bother to vote, it’s likely for either the Republicans or the Democrats. Many, many people vote the same way as their parents.

Joe Biden delivering his acceptance speech on the last night of the Democratic National Convention on 20 August (Getty) (Getty Images)

Either way, once every four years the party has to find a candidate that can appeal to as many people as possible. Or else shape and present that candidate in a way that has broadest appeal. At least, that is how it usually works.

Things have been much harder during the pandemic. Having taken the decision to livestream all of their events – the socially distanced celebration in that Delaware parking lot being the possible exception – Democrats did a slick job of shifting things online.

A number of people said they were able to listen to the speakers more clearly, that there was effective “message discipline” and that both Kamala Harris and Biden delivered the goods when it mattered in their keynote speeches.

The Republicans have mixed things up rather more. A combination of live events and pre-recorded videos, it seems GOP watched the Democrats, copied the best parts and then added some of their own. At each point, Donald Trump inserted himself, apparently confident people were keen for four more years of his administration.

It may be the conventions did not move the needle very much, which currently points clearly in Biden’s favour. Typically, a party can expect a boost of a point or two after such events, though those numbers have been getting smaller.

Remember perhaps only 15 per cent of voters watched these events, and those were most likely the most partisan. The number of independent or undecided voters having their minds made up by this may have been very small.

“The Republican convention connected with the GOP base, which is enthusiastically pro-Trump,” says Larry Sabato, professor of politics at the University of Virginia. “There was little to no appeal to independents and moderates.

“Trump is at 41-42 per cent and he wants to get up to 47-48 per cent, just a bit better than his 46 per cent in 2016, and that should be enough to carry the Electoral College again. The popular vote is irrelevant.”

So what has Donald Trump done to show he could beat Joe Biden? He has just been himself, only more so. He and his surrogates have told lies, spoken mistruths, sought to generate fear and panic, and repeatedly tried to undermine the integrity of the election.

And he made use of the trappings of government – the Oval Office, the Rose Garden, Fort McHenry national monument, fireworks over the Washington Monument and a naturalisation ceremony – to put on his show. Even Barack Obama, who spoke from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, against the setting of the words “We the People”, could not compete with that.

In the infamous words of outgoing adviser Kellyanne Conway who somehow kept a straight face to claim Trump was a champion of women, despite overwhelming evidence of rank misogyny, there are facts and then there are “alternative facts”. Everyone gets to put their spin on things.

But when, on Wednesday night, as the death toll from the coronavirus passed 180,000, Mike Pence claimed the president had “marshalled the full resources of the federal government” to tackle the pandemic, it was as if we had entered fantasy land. No doubt plenty of Democrats spun things to suit them, but nothing on the scale of this.

“There were just so many lies,” says Christina Greer, professor of politics at New York’s Fordham University. “The Republicans have become a party of liars.”

Donald Trump has underscored he will use every trick in the book to secure his re-election in November. Having surrounded himself with a small cult of family members and diehards, he may actually believe it. Either way, he has drawn a line in the sand, and dared the Democrats to dislodge him.

“This election will decide whether we save the American dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny,” Trump said on the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention indicating the dark and ugly campaign that lies ahead.

“This election will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchic agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens.”

He concluded: “We will make America prouder and we will make America greater than ever before. I am very, very proud to be the nominee of the Republican party. I love you all, God bless you, God bless America.”