RNC chair: Trump planning tour to woo Latino voters, believes convention will be turning point
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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event to announce Gov. Mike Pence, R-Ind., as the vice presidential running mate on, Saturday, July 16, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus says presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump understands the party’s need to grow beyond white voters and plans for an engagement tour to attract Latino voters.
Priebus told "Fox News Sunday" that he expects Trump to bring a message of unity to this week's convention, also working to attract women, young people and minorities into the party.
He is also banking on this week’s convention to become a turning point in Trump’s quest for the White House.
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After Trump's somewhat clumsy introduction of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate, during which Trump spent most of the time talking about himself and "crooked" Hillary Clinton, Priebus said Sunday that he expects Trump to debut his presidential side during this week's convention in Cleveland.
"I think Thursday night's a critical night for him, delivering a great speech, the balloon drop, the people in this country saying, 'I can see Donald Trump being in the White House. I think he's presidential,'" Priebus told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.
Some have questioned whether Pence's strong conservative stance on social issues might alienate demographic groups that lean Democrat.
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Priebus described Trump and Pence as being "somewhere in the middle of each other."
The Trump-Pence pairing was designed in part to bring together fractious elements of the Republican Party on the eve of its national convention.
Yet the usual trappings of a presumptive nominee's most significant announcement were missing in the Manhattan hotel ballroom where a few hundred supporters gathered Saturday morning. Nowhere in sight were "Trump/Pence" signs, for example, and Trump's decision had been tweeted the previous day, stealing any sense of surprise from the event. Choosing a venue in a state Trump has little chance of winning also broke with traditional politicking strategy.
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Trump and his new running mate appeared on stage together only briefly before Trump disappeared and Pence gave a speech that closely hewed to the populist themes that Trump has voiced, describing himself as "really just a small-town boy." He praised Trump effusively as "a good man," a fighter, a legendary businessman and a patriotic American.
"The American people are tired," Pence said in remarks that included many of the same talking points that until recently he was using in his bid for re-election. "We're tired of being told that this is as good as it gets. We're tired of having politicians in both parties in Washington, D.C., telling us we'll get to those problems tomorrow."
Trump returned for a round of photos with the Trump and Pence families.
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The lack of hoopla contrasted with Mitt Romney's introduction four years ago of running mate Paul Ryan on the deck of a Navy battleship, the USS Wisconsin, off the shore of swing-state Virginia. With cheering, flag-waving crowds and a soaring patriotic soundtrack, the pair faced the nation for the first time flanked by a massive red, white and blue banner displaying their new campaign logo.
The underwhelming rollout of the GOP ticket continued when Pence flew back home to Indiana without Trump. A few hundred people greeted him at a suburban Indianapolis airport hangar bereft of any "Trump-Pence" signs. He spoke for only a few minutes, telling the crowd that he and his family were headed home for "pizza night."
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
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