Hi, I'm Jon Lieber, Managing Director for
the United States at the Eurasia Group.
And this is US Politics In 60 Seconds,
Republican National Convention wrap up edition.
So, what struck me about the convention this week
was that it became really clear the messages
that Donald Trump wants to hammer home
as the campaign enters into its final two months.
The first is his record of accomplishments,
which included renegotiating trade deals,
getting tough on China,
a record number of jobs, and a great economy,
that of course, all went away during the coronavirus,
which did not really get much of a mention during
the convention.
The second thing he wants to hammer on is Joe Biden.
Two claims in particular about Biden.
One is that he's a tool for the radical left.
I believe President Trump even said he'd be a
Trojan horse for socialism in the United States.
And the second is that Trump really wants
to focus on some of these images
of urban protests and riots in the streets
and tie the protests to the Democratic Party,
claiming that it's the fault of Democratic mayors 
and that if you elect Democrats,
you're just going to get more protests.
So, Biden got a very small convention bounce,
really none at all, after his weeklong
Democratic convention and I expect you're going to see
Trump not get much of a bounce after his
and what's really notable about this race 
is how static it's been.
Biden's had a national eight to nine-point
lead in the polling aggregates.
Trump's approval ratings have been in the
low 40s, but now they've rebounded slightly
to 42% on average nationally.
And it's probably going to remain that way
for the rest of the campaign.
The goal here for President Trump, and you
saw a lot of this on display at the convention,
is to target messages directly at his base
by saying he's the most pro-cop, pro-life,
pro-farmer, pro-veteran president 
that's ever existed on the Earth,
and in doing so, he wants to get out his base,
who is predominately white, rural voters.
If he can do that in states like Wisconsin,
Michigan, and Pennsylvania,
then he still has a shot to win this election
because even a small increase in participation
by white voters in those states would overwhelm any
potential turnout advantage that Joe Biden might get
from, say, African-American voters
who are showing up to vote in the numbers
they did in 2012 for President Obama.
So, two months to go left in the race.
Lots can still change.
I think that even though Biden's got this
big polling lead, it actually remains fairly close.
And we'll be checking in to see how it goes.
Thanks again for joining us.
This is US Politics In over 60 Seconds.
