Former President Donald Trump began his prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday with a message of unity, presenting a softer image of himself that appeared aimed at courting undecided voters.

But then he went on for an hour and a half, a long verbal walk through the kinds of exaggerations about his record and attacks on Democrats that have become familiar to voters from Trump’s previous two campaigns and presidency.

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The Undecided Voters

For a group of undecided voters from around the country, who are sharing their thoughts on key moments in the race with The New York Times, the effect was not strong. Some found the speech off-putting. A few found bright spots. None were swayed.

“I still don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Sharon Reed, 77, a retired teacher-turned-farmer in rural Pennsylvania who previously voted for Trump but is torn this year. “He tried, I think, to be much more unifying at the beginning. But then he got on his high horse there at the end.”

Reed’s husband, who watched the speech with her and is leaning toward Trump, was somewhat more positive. “He’s hitting all the points that I like,” Reed said, mentioning in particular Trump’s talk about securing the border and “drill, baby, drill.”

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Arnel Ramos, 21, a food service worker living in Milwaukee, had hoped that Trump would talk about his belief systems, and that she would get to know him better before she casts a ballot in her first presidential election.

“You read a lot of stuff about what this guy says, but to actually sit down and hear it and sit through it, it was just insane to me,” she said. “That’s the only way I can describe this whole ordeal.”

Ramos said she found much of the speech unsettling — such as the connections Trump drew between immigration and crime, destruction and even disease — but she took particular issue with Trump’s aggressive tone on foreign policy and his description of being on the brink of “World War III.”

“It made me uncomfortable,” she said.

Speech Came After a Week of Political Shocks

The speech punctuated a dizzying week of political shocks that began with an assassination attempt on the former president at a political rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. It followed Trump’s selection of a hard-right running mate, Sen. JD Vance, and news of a growing chorus of Democratic leaders seeking to usher President Joe Biden out of the race.

And it came just weeks after Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June raised anew the question for voters on the president’s age and fitness.

The Times spoke with the same group of undecided voters after the debate, many of whom came away still feeling mostly disappointed in the choice between Trump and Biden.

“It was just terrible,” Ryan Rivera, a trans man from the Phoenix area who works at Target, said at the time.

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The speech Thursday — and the flurry of major political events that preceded it — had not made the choice any clearer, especially with what appeared to be the increasing possibility of a different Democratic candidate.

Kristen Morris, 60, a nursing student in a suburb outside Charlotte, North Carolina, said she felt after the debate that she could not vote for Biden despite having supported him in 2020. She attributes her current dissatisfaction to what she felt was Biden’s stubbornness in remaining in the race.

“He is not putting the country first,” Morris said. “Maybe he will, but he has not been doing that.”

But after watching Trump’s speech Thursday night, she was not sold on the former president either. She said she would still rather not vote for him because of his hyperbolic — and at times, confusing and incendiary — rhetoric, particularly around immigration.

Glimmer of a Slightly Changed Trump

There were possible glimmers of a slightly changed Trump after the shooting, she said, but that did not negate her memories from his time in office, when she watched him resist the peaceful transition of power after losing the election in 2020.

“I’m going to be watching to see if this was really a life-changing, life-altering moment, which it very well could have,” Morris said of the assassination attempt on Trump. “That will perhaps bear out over the next months.”

Sara Khalsa, 41, a massage therapist and independent voter in Scottsdale, Arizona, watched the speech at her boyfriend’s apartment — she in the living room, and he in the bedroom. He is a Trump supporter. She supported Biden in 2020 but has been agonizing over whether she could vote for him again because of his support for Israel in its war in the Gaza Strip.

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She did not like Trump going into Thursday night, and the speech did not win her over.

“The whole thing with his ear — that could help him win,” she said, referring to the bandage Trump wore over his right ear, the result of the bullet that struck him.

But his recounting of the experience at the start of his speech, and saying that he had been protected by God, disturbed her and turned her off. “It’s just propaganda,” she said. “I’m against violence, but it’s just annoying they can make it look like he’s a hero.”

The convention experience of Rivera in Phoenix may mirror that of many undecided voters, even in an election described by both parties as existential for the future of democracy and the nation.

“I forgot to watch,” Rivera said.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Julie Bosman, Jack Healy, Eduardo Medina, Campbell Robertson and J. David Goodman/Kenny Holston
c.2024 The New York Times Company