Republican convention 2016: What to watch Thursday
This is it: the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
With GOP nominee Donald Trump taking the stage, anything could happen. Trump will be the main attraction tonight, delivering his primetime speech and formally accepting the Republican nomination. The night's theme is "Make America One Again," a nod to the Republican unity that's thus far eluded Trump and his campaign.
With that in mind, here's our (much shorter) daily list of what to watch as the GOP convention wraps up:
1.) Trump, Trump, Trump
What Trump says tonight in his primetime appearance will help set the tone for the general election. Will he present a vision for the country and the means to attain it? Or will he, as other speakers in Cleveland have done thus far, focus largely on bashing Hillary Clinton?
And then there's his delivery. Every interested election watcher has seen that there are two different Trumps when it comes to public speaking: there's brash, off-the-cuff Trump who shows up to his rallies who sometimes strays from the narrative of the day, and then there's the somewhat flat one who reads from a teleprompter for speeches on topics of import and policy proposals. It's a safe bet that Trump has prepared a speech for Thursday night, but will he stick to it?
How will he treat the skeptics in his party who have still not embraced his candidacy, and what will he say to unite his party? His campaign chairman certainly hasn't been feeling conciliatory -- Paul Manafort responded to Ohio Gov. John Kasich's conspicuous absence from the convention by saying he is "embarrassing his party in Ohio."
Finally, we're watching the reactions to Trump's speech, both within the room and across the country. Not every delegate in the arena is a die-hard Trump fan -- how will he do at winning over the GOP faithful in the Q--and the millions watching and tweeting outside of Cleveland?
2.) Protests: Will things stay calm?
Organizers expected the worst when it came to protests outside the convention venue in Cleveland, dispatching extra police and ordering up riot gear at a record clip. Those concerns were exacerbated by the fact that Ohio is an open carry state, meaning not only were they dealing with the prospect of angry protesters--but also the possibility of angry protesters with guns.
So far, protests have flared up at times but have avoided the all-out pandemonium some were expecting--and if tonight stays relatively quiet, that means concerns for chaos were far overstated -- but better overstated than understated.