US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Milwaukee: Donald Trump's former rivals for the Republican presidential nomination will voice their support for his candidacy at the party's convention on Tuesday, a deliberate display of party unity after a divisive primary campaign.
The second night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee will feature speeches from former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who were roundly defeated by Trump earlier this year in the state-by-state battle for the nomination.
Haley's address in particular will be closely watched after she cast Trump as unelectable and unfit for office during the primary campaign before saying in May she would vote for him. She was not initially invited to speak but has been given a prime-time slot.
The show of harmony was intended to draw a contrast with the Democratic Party, which has spent weeks mired in an intraparty squabble over whether President Joe Biden, 81, should abandon his reelection bid after his halting June 27 debate performance against Trump, 78, raised fresh questions about his age and mental acuity.
The tenor of the evening's speeches in Milwaukee - centered on the theme of safety - was more aggressive than the first night, with speakers angrily denouncing Biden's southern border policies as putting the country's security at risk.
Kari Lake and Bernie Moreno, who are running in high-profile US Senate races in Arizona and Ohio, respectively, and US Senator Ted Cruz all called the flow of migrants an "invasion."
Cruz delivered remarks suffused with Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric, blaming Democrats for what he said was a wave of violent crimes committed by migrants.
While border crossings reached record highs during Biden's tenure, arrests dropped sharply in June after the president implemented a broad asylum ban. Studies show immigrants do not commit crime at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
Trump has vowed to crack down on illegal immigration and pledged to launch the largest deportation effort in US history, including the use of federal troops if necessary.
The divisive tone was in contrast to the message of national unity that Trump had promised to deliver this week in the wake of the shooting.
Trump entered the arena around 8 pm local time (0100 GMT on Wednesday) to a raucous ovation, just as he did on Monday in his first public appearance since a gunman tried to assassinate him on Saturday at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.
He was more ebullient than the night before, when he seemed emotional and more subdued than usual. A heavily bandaged ear served as a reminder of how narrowly he survived the attempt.
The shooting also intensified fears among Americans about the deeply divided state of the nation ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday found that 80% of voters - including similar shares of Republicans and Democrats - agreed "the country is spiraling out of control" in the wake of the shooting.
Authorities were still trying to identify a motive for the shooting. The 20-year-old gunman was killed at the scene by the U.S. Secret Service.
Vance is veep pick
After entering the arena, Trump took his place alongside his newly minted running mate, US Senator J D Vance, 39, a former Trump critic who has become one of his staunchest supporters in Congress.
Vance, the author of the bestselling memoir "Hillbilly Elegy," is likely to energise core Republican voters, but it is less clear whether he can appeal to more moderate voters, including independents.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found 29 per cent of US voters, including 52 per cent of Republicans, had a favorable opinion of Vance. By comparison, 42 per cent of registered voters and 81 per cent of Democrats had a favorable view of Biden's running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris.
The survey of 992 registered voters, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, found Trump leading Biden by 43 per cent to 41 per cent, within the margin of error.
In his first campaign speech since the assassination attempt, Biden told Black voters in Las Vegas that he was "all in" for his reelection campaign, again dismissing calls from some Democrats to step aside.
The president said he was glad that Trump had not been seriously injured but assailed his record in office. Biden has denounced the attack and called for less heated rhetoric.
The four-day convention will culminate with Trump's prime-time address on Thursday, when he formally accepts the party's nomination to face Biden in a rematch of their 2020 race.