What to expect from the 2024 Republican National Convention, just days after the Trump rally shooting

CTV National News: Trump addresses RNC Joy Malbon breaks down Trump's address to the Republican National Convention and his vision for America.

The Republican National Convention (RNC) kicks off its summit to pick the party’s presidential nominee in Milwaukee, Wis., on Monday, just two days after former U.S. president Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania.

A typically heightened security environment around such a convention will be that much higher this week after shots were fired Saturday at the rally, killing one attendee and injuring two others; with one bullet grazing Trump’s right ear, according to his own account.

CTV News chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos, who’s in Milwaukee to cover the convention, said the drama not just from the violence over the weekend but from political events over the past few weeks are sure to influence the mood and agenda at the gathering.

“I’m not sure a month ago when everyone was preparing for this, if they imagined what has happened, not only (on Saturday), but also over the last two weeks,” Kapelos told CTV News Channel on Sunday, referring to Biden’s performance during the presidential debate, which led to calls from some Democrats for the president to step aside as the Democratic candidate.

“All of that has informed a very different convention than I think the one we anticipated even just a few weeks ago, and especially after (Saturday). So we’ll be looking to see how various delegates, various speeches, people who are attending, how what happened this weekend informs the kinds of things they talk about there, the way in which they appeal to their supporters, and maybe even more so, the way in which they appeal to people who have yet to make up their minds,” said Kapelos, referring to the half-a-million or so swing voters who will be key to determining who wins the general election in November.

Even before Saturday’s attempted assassination, there was no question of who is going to walk out of this week's RNC as the GOP's presidential nominee. Now, support for the former president is expected to be even stronger.

“Nothing unites Americans more than an attack on an Americans,” said Republican strategist Cory Crowley Sunday on CTV News Channel. "You saw in on Sept. 11, you saw it when there was an attempt on Ronald Reagan’s life that was the most recent (presidential assassination attempt), and you see it now with Donald Trump.”

He said Republicans will be sure to use that instantly iconic image of Trump with raised fist in the air to their advantage as a rallying point.

“I think from Donald Trump you’re going to hear an absolutely defiant tone. You’re going to hear him almost try to make himself seem like somebody who has died and (has risen) again by living through this horrible attack,” said Crowley, adding we will likely see many correlations drawn between Trump and Reagan – who was widely seen as a unifying Republican because he was both “popular and a populist.”

But aside from the messaging, there will be much more for all the power brokers, tastemakers and Republican thought leaders gathering at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee for RNC 2024 to wade through at this convention. Here’s CTVNews.ca’s guide on what to expect this week:

What is the Republican National Convention?

Held before each U.S. presidential election, the RNC is a gathering to elect the GOP's nominee, as chosen by delegates from all 50 states, as well as U.S. territories and Washington, D.C.

RNCs in decades past marked the nail-biting crescendo of open races between multiple contenders, but this year will have no such uncertainty.

Though the 2024 primary saw spirited competition between underdogs including current and former Republican Governors Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and others, ultimately, no candidate stood a chance against former U.S. president Donald Trump, who has won enough state races to mathematically eliminate the competition.

Instead, 2024 will feature a coronation for the presumptive nominee, expected to be marked by celebratory speeches and the appointment of Trump's running mate, itself an open question that has drawn months of speculation.

When is RNC 2024?

This year's convention will run from July 15 to 18 in Milwaukee, a key battleground state in the coming presidential race.

Wisconsin is often prone to swing from one party to the other, most recently handing its 10 electoral college votes to U.S. President Joe Biden in 2020, but previously, former president Trump in 2016, and for former Democratic president Barack Obama in 2012 and 2008.

Democrats will hold a separate convention from Aug. 19 to 22 in Chicago, Ill., where a prior Democratic National Convention once gave rise to the 1968 Chicago Riots.

When will Trump speak at the RNC?

Trump is scheduled to address Republican delegates on Thursday evening, which is the last day of the convention.

Who has Trump picked for VP?

Ever since former vice-president Mike Pence broke ranks with his commander-in-chief to certify Joe Biden's 2020 election win, Trump found himself without a clear choice of running mate, up until Monday.

In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump announced that he had selected freshman Sen. J.D. Vance as his vice-presidential pick.

Vance's name was circulated as a potential VP pick prior to the start of the Republican National Convention. The bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy" was once a notorious critic of Trump, but his about-face in recent years marks his capture of hearts and minds across the party. Vance maintains popularity in another key state for Trump: Ohio. If elected in November, the 39-year-old would become one of the youngest vice-presidents in history.

As recently as last week, party sources and front-runners alike said they weren't yet aware of Trump's final decision.

Security at RNC

Needless to say, security is facing increased scrutiny around the convention following the attempted assassination just a few days ago. But as of Sunday night, officials gave no indication that security, which has been meticulously planned for 18 months now and designated at the highest level, will change after the events of Saturday.

Wisconsin is an open carry state – meaning anyone who’s 18 or over, who isn’t barred from carrying a legal firearm, can do so in a public location even if they don’t have a permit or licence.

Therefore, there is nothing stopping people from openly carrying firearms in the outer security perimeter of the convention area in downtown Milwaukee. And law enforcement officials confirmed on Sunday that they won’t be making changes to the security plan.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers asked the Secret Service to reconsider the plan, but the agency said on Sunday night it would not do so.

What's in the 2024 Republican platform?

Approved last week for formal adoption at the convention, the 2024 Republican Party Platform reasserts policy trends that Trump has made cornerstones of the MAGA movement.

Priorities include a crackdown on immigration, both at the U.S.-Mexico border and through what the platform calls "the largest deportation operation in American history"; America-first approaches to energy and manufacturing, defence spending and foreign policy; deregulation and tax cuts; reforms to "ensure election integrity"; and deference to hot-button social conservative issues including gender identity in schools, gun control and reproductive rights.

"In 2016, President Donald J. Trump was elected as an unapologetic Champion of the American People," reads the platform's preamble. "We will restore our Nation of, by, and for the People. We will Make America Great Again."

What about Project 2025?

The RNC is expected to showcase a meeting of the minds for the American conservative movement, but as election day nears, one force in that movement will hang over the proceedings that even Trump has kept at arm's length.

Project 2025, a 900-page policy blueprint developed by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, has seized headlines in recent weeks as critics in the Biden campaign call it a plan to "consolidate presidential power for Trump's own revenge and retribution."

The authors of Project 2025 have made enemies of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, groups within the LGBTQ2S+ community, proponents of critical race theory, regulatory agencies and other bureaucrats, "progressive elites," environmentalists and some immigrant communities, to name a few.

Other policy proposals skew more fringe even among the right, such as to outlaw pornography or to shutter or break up and rearrange entire U.S. federal offices including the Departments of Education and Homeland Security.

Thus far, Trump has been largely mum toward the particulars of the project, claiming in a social media post Thursday, "I have not seen it, have no idea who is in charge of it, and, unlike our very well received Republican Platform, had nothing to do with it."

Nevertheless, a CNN review linked more than 140 former members of Trump's presidential administration to the project, and like The Heritage Foundation's other self-styled "Mandate[s] for Leadership" that go back to shortly before Ronald Reagan's first presidential term in 1980, Project 2025 is purpose-built to inform the staff, if not place directly in the hands, of the next conservative in the Oval Office.

"Indeed, one set of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th President of the United States," reads the plan's opening remarks.

"The [1980] book literally put the conservative movement and Reagan on the same page, and the revolution that followed might never have been, save for this band of committed and volunteer activists."

With files from The Associated Press