Did Trump put a dent in negative approval ratings at RNC?: ANALYSIS

The two virtual conventions are done, and now we are on to the intensity of the presidential campaign in the final two months between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden when neither candidate or party will again have the opportunity to keep the stage to themselves for any real length of time.As I related in my column from a few days ago, Biden was able to do what the Democrats strategically set out to do: to both solidify positive perceptions of him and his leadership, which is significant, in a time of division and polarization.In that same column, I suggested that the strategic imperative of Trump was to significantly alter the negative approval ratings of him by the American public. We were able to accomplish this over the course of the 2004 GOP national convention.Though we won’t have national poll numbers for at least a few days to determine if Trump was able to do this, my expectation is that the 2020 GOP convention was not able to accomplish the goal of fundamentally changing Trump’s negative approval numbers.