Sawt Falasteen - Trump to rally unified Republicans in convention finale

The 78-year-old will address the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin hoping to build momentum toward victory in the November election and a second term in the White House.

Supporters have been lining up all week to applaud the former president for his bravery since Saturday's assassination bid by a lone gunman at a rally in Pennsylvania.

As some of his loyalists blamed Democrats' rhetoric for the attack, Trump said he had torn up a more aggressive version of his keynote address in favor of one to "unite our country."

"I'm just grateful we're going to hear from him. It's a miracle that his life was spared, and I really believe it was God's hand," Teena Horlacher, a 50-year-old convention delegate from Utah, told AFP.

"I'd love for him to talk about Saturday, what his feelings were."

Trump has seen his poll lead expand since President Joe Biden's dismal TV debate performance last month threw the Democratic Party into chaos.

The Republican campaign has even been talking up Trump's chances in Democratic strongholds like Minnesota and Virginia, potentially forcing Biden funds and manpower away from defending his "blue wall" in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump's keynote address on Thursday evening will be followed on television and online by millions, closing the convention by promising what his team calls as "a new golden age for America."

- Total control -

It brings down the curtain on four days of speeches from elected officials, entertainers, industry figures and everyday Americans who mixed with some 50,000 Republicans attending the event.

The gathering opened Monday with a vote to confirm Trump as the party's nominee after he won almost every state's primary contest.

It has been the first convention over which Trump has had total control, after a 2016 edition hampered by party divisions and a second appearance in 2020 reined in by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The schedule was designed around his image, with themes for each day playing on his "Make America Great Again" rallying cry.

The former president set the tone when he walked slowly into the Fiserv Forum arena on the opening day -- looking emotional and with a bandaged ear, just two days after the shooting.

The week also saw Trump name right-wing Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate.

The 39-year-old author of "Hillbilly Elegy," a best-selling memoir about growing up poor in working-class, rural America, is a one-time critic who has become one of Trump's most staunch backers.

Trump himself was a diminished figure after his 2020 election loss and a subsequent riot at the Capitol in Washington by his supporters, but he has spent much of the last four years reshaping Republican politics.

Installing close allies, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump on the Republican National Committee, the mercurial tycoon has effectively crushed dissent within the party.

Trump is increasingly confident of winning the election -- despite multiple legal problems and two impeachments clouding his first term -- as Biden is reeling from weak polls and concerns over his health.

"There's a clearly stark contrast between the strength of President Trump and the weakness of President Biden," Mississippi delegate Clifton Carroll told AFP.

"And I think he'll expand on that, and really send a message that the entire United States of America can get behind whether they're Republican, Democrat or Independent."

Q.Najjar--SF-PST