CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The battle cry from Republican Party delegates gathered at the national convention sounds a lot like “damn the torpedoes.”
Party activists at the Republican National Convention, which is locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, do not want President Trump to dial back the high-energy — some say hyperactive — campaign style that won him the White House in 2016 as an establishment-bashing outsider.
They say Mr. Trump’s manic presence on the stump is more of an asset than a liability and his record of accomplishment disproves Democrats’ charges that he doesn’t take the job seriously.
“Mr. Trump has successfully rewritten the rules of conventional politics for the last five years, and I have no reason to believe he will not continue to successfully rewrite the rules,” said Peter Feaman, a convention delegate and national committeeman at the Republican Party of Florida.
In other words, “Let Trump be Trump,” as was the motto for Mr. Trump’s campaign team in 2016.
Democrats have made Mr. Trump’s style and accusations that he is a chaotic and unreliable leader the centerpiece of the argument to replace him with their nominee, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden.
Former President Barack Obama hammered home that message last week at the livestreamed Democratic National Convention. He said Mr. Trump had “no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”
Mr. Feaman said the insult rings hollow when stacked up against Mr. Trump’s record of wins, including brokering a peace deal this month between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, which is only the third Arab country to normalize relations with the Jewish state, after Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
“You know his administration takes things seriously when you get a treaty like that,” he said.
Mr. Trump so far isn’t letting down the party faithful.
Breaking the norms of presidential campaign politics, Mr. Trump last week delivered his hard-charging message outside Mr. Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on the same day Mr. Biden accepted the nomination.
He warned that Mr. Biden was beholden to the “crazy people” on the far left and would trash gun rights, energy independence, and law and order in America.
Not long ago, it would have been unseemly for a president to step on his challenger’s acceptance speech.
Jeff Schuette, a delegate to the RNC in Charlotte, called it “innovative” for the president to muscle in on his rival’s big moment.
“We are definitely in a new Trump era,” said Mr. Schuette, chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party for the 2nd Congressional District, which includes the suburbs and exurbs south of the Twin Cities.
Mr. Trump usually rises to the occasion for big moments, delivering sharply focused presidential-style addresses such as his 2016 speech accepting the Republican Party nomination and his State of the Union speeches. He usually saves the exuberant and freewheeling riffs, which his base adores, for rallies and impromptu exchanges with the press.
Precautions against the novel coronavirus have mostly halted rallies, and Mr. Trump’s use of White House events to deliver his message has blurred the lines between presidential and campaign events.
He runs the risk of walking into Mr. Biden’s character trap, said Carter Wrenn, a Republican Party strategist in North Carolina who isn’t involved in the convention.
“Biden wants to make Trump, personally, the focus of his campaign — which may mean boasts, name-calling, lies offer Biden ways to do that,” he said. “That doesn’t pre-empt rallies or ‘hyper-energy’ or ‘firing up the base,’ but it may make the way Trump is attacking Biden a liability with swing voters.”
The delegates have been conducting convention business under a strict lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. With the public and the news media locked out, the delegates conducted meetings, set the platform and prepared for Monday’s roll call vote to nominate Mr. Trump for a second term.
Inside the Charlotte Convention Center and a nearby hotel where the delegates are holed up, they say the mood is upbeat and “energized,” despite the coronavirus and the economic downturn inflicted by state governments to fight COVID-19.
Delegates are convinced that Mr. Trump’s support is stronger than what is reflected in polls, which show Mr. Biden in the lead.
Mr. Biden had a 10-point lead, 52% to 42%, but Mr. Trump had strong support from Republican voters on key issues, according to a CBS/YouGov battleground tracking poll released Sunday.
Despite the downturn, 75% of registered Republican voters said America is better off than it was four years ago, compared with 25% who said it is not. Among all voters, 35% said America is better off and 65% said it is not, according to the survey.
The poll showed 82% of Republicans have confidence in Mr. Trump and 73% said the fight against COVID-19 is going well.
About 27% of Republicans said the fight against the pandemic is going badly. Among all voters, 38% said it is going well and 62% said it is not.
The way the Republican Party insiders at the convention see it, voters have a stark choice between Mr. Trump’s promise of law and order, his tough stance toward China and economic freedom versus Mr. Biden’s urban riots and socialism.
“American people are watching in horror what is going on with the violence in the streets,” Mr. Feaman said. “They know the only chance they have for law and order is to go with President Trump.”
