Night 1 of the Republican National Convention is over, and the Republicans covered a lot of ground, including how President Trump has handled the coronavirus and whether America is racist. It was a mixture, too, of more Trumpian Republicans like Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host and Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend, who were defending Trump’s record alongside more traditional Republicans like former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. The question is whether Americans will be receptive to this version of Trump and the GOP or whether public opinion of Trump is already fixed. The next three days will be important, too, as Trump is trailing Biden significantly in the polls. In fact, as Geoffrey Skelley and Nathaniel Rakich wrote on Monday, no incumbent president has trailed by as much as Trump heading into the conventions since 1968, so a convention bounce could really be make-or-break for Trump.

• Regardless of whether Trump wins reelection, however, there’s reason to believe he’s remade the party in his own image. FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman writes about why there are so few moderate Republicans nowadays and why our politics reward extreme stances within the two parties.
• Also, we’re not entirely sure what to make of it yet, but it does seem as if Trump’s approval rating is slowly ticking back up from its most recent nadir. His ratings for how he’s handled the coronavirus pandemic, however, remain poor.