David Smith

In opinion polls, Trump is running 11 percentage points ahead of where he was nationally in the 2020 race of the White House. He is surfing a wave of sympathy and adulation after his right ear was injured by a would-be assassin’s bullet at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

Two days later, his ear bandaged, Trump received a hero’s welcome from cheering, sign-waving supporters at the convention in Milwaukee. Some echoed Trump’s initial response to “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Speaker after speaker suggested that Trump’s life was spared by God’s providence so that he can continue a sacred mission for the nation. But they backed away from early accusations that Democrats were to blame for the shooting.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who on Saturday tweeted that the Joe Biden campaign’s rhetoric “led directly” to the attempted assassination, struck a different tone in his convention address on Wednesday night.

“Now consider what they said. They said he was a tyrant. They said he must be stopped at all costs. But how did he respond? He called for national unity, for national calm literally right after an assassin nearly took his life.”

What should we expect from Trump’s speech later?

David Smith

With political winds at his back, Donald Trump on Thursday is expected to use his first speech since surviving an assassination attempt to plead for national unity.

Strategists view the Republican national convention address, likely to be watched by tens of millions of Americans on prime time television, as a unique opportunity to redefine the former US president as more palatable to moderate voters.

But critics remain sceptical that a Trump reset can last, citing past supposed “pivots” that were hyped by the media only for the septuagenarian to soon revert to dark, divisive and incendiary outbursts.

“That was a profound existential moment and I’m sure it’s impacted him in the short run, but you are who you are,” David Axelrod, a former chief strategist for President Barack Obama, said. “He isn’t by habit or orientation a unifier.

“Maybe so long as the race is going well others can persuade him that it’s better to be quiet than noisy. But you never know what happens in two in the morning when he’s got his phone in his hand and an impulse in his head.”

Joan E Greve

After his speech, Democrats scoffed at Vance’s attempt to appeal to working Americans, accusing him of backing “an economic agenda that will raise costs on American families, while giving billionaires and corporations tax cuts”.

Michael Tyler, communications director of the Biden campaign, added, “JD Vance is unprepared, unqualified and willing to do anything Donald Trump demands.”

In his speech, Vance joined the scores of Republican lawmakers who have condemned the assassination attempt against Trump on Saturday. Vance urged Americans to unify in the face of violence, even as he vilified Democrats who previously criticized Trump.

“I want all Americans to go and watch the video of a would-be assassin coming a quarter of an inch from taking his life,” Vance said. “Consider the lies they told you about Donald Trump, and then look at that photo of him defiant, fist in the air. When Donald Trump rose to his feet in that Pennsylvania field, all of America stood with him.”

What happened on day three?

Joan E Greve

JD Vance formally accepted the Republican vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday with a deliberate, and at times divisive, pitch to re-elect Donald Trump in November.

Addressing delegates in Milwaukee on the third night of the convention, Vance, the junior senator of Ohio, presented the Republican party as a champion of working-class Americans while denouncing Democrats as out of touch and ineffective. The populist-tinged rhetoric offered the latest sign of how Trump has reshaped the Republican party and rejected much of the traditional conservatism of its past.

Vance told the energized crowd:

From Iraq to Afghanistan, from the financial crisis to the Great Recession, from open borders to stagnating wages, the people who govern this country have failed and failed again.

That is, of course, until a guy named Donald J Trump came along. President Trump represents America’s last, best hope to restore what, if lost, may never be found again.

Vance leaned into his own personal story, first shared in his bestselling and controversial memoir Hillbilly Elegy, to bolster his message. He recounted experiences with childhood poverty in Middletown, Ohio, and his later acceptance to Yale Law School as he introduced himself to a much larger audience of Americans for the first time. In an emotional moment, Vance acknowledged his mother in the crowd and celebrated her 10 years of sobriety after decades of struggling with drug addiction.

With a mention of the battleground states that could determine the outcome of the election, he vowed that a Trump-Vance administration would deliver economic opportunity for working-class communities.

He added:

In Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio and every corner of our nation, I promise you this: I will be a vice-president who never forgets where he came from. And every single day for the next four years, when I walk into that White House to help President Trump, I will be doing it for you, for your family, for your future and for this great country.

Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the 2024 Republican national convention.

The fourth and final day in Milwaukee will conclude with Donald Trump’s speech. Prior to that, his son Eric expected to speak.

Day three at the RNC saw JD Vance formally accept the Republican vice-presidential nomination with a deliberate, and at times divisive, pitch to re-elect Donald Trump in November.

You can read our main report of day three here:

Stick with us for reaction to that, plus all the day’s developments and analysis from across the country.