All eyes are on the republican national convention Wednesday night as former President Donald Trump's vice-presidential pick, JD Vance, takes center stage.
Dozens of delegates from Southwest Florida are attending Day 3 of the convention, and while they’re looking forward to hearing from Vance, they all admit that Thursday is the most anticipated day as their nominee, Donald Trump, takes the stage and the world hears from him for the first time since the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania last week.
Local delegates say they want to hear a message of unity from Trump.
JoAnn DeBartolo is a GOP state committeewoman and delegate attending the convention. She said she was pleased with Trump’s pick for VP.
“I think he's a young guy, ambitious, cares about the country. I think the former president made a very good decision on that,” DeBartolo said.
Although Vance may not have been everyone’s first-choice delegate, Bill Daubmann is supporting him.
“I would like to have seen our congressman Byron Donalds, but JD Vance has just an absolute, terrific resume,” Daubmann stressed.
State Sen. Jonathan Martin agrees and is anxious to hear Vance’s message and believes he can help Trump in certain states.
“We lost a couple of states in 2020, and I think having JD Vance on the ticket is going to bring those three states back into the Republican vote,” Martin said, referring to the Rust Belt, as Vance is from Ohio.
All of the delegates agree that it is President Trump's message they're most anxious to hear on Thursday.
“Getting back to unifying our country is what me and many of us are looking forward to,” Martin continued.
Trump has promised unity, and it now seems to be something his delegates expect.
“I would really like to hear a unity message that I understand is in the possibilities, rewriting his speech and bring not only the party together, but the never-Trumpers together, but the whole country together,” Daubmann said.
DeBartolo, however, said she personally wants to see the fight to win continue throughout the campaign.
“It's all about fight, fight, fight and that is what I see them talking about, more than the Make America Great that we had in 2016, now it's fight, fight, fight and get our country back,” DeBartolo concluded.
President Trump's campaign said his original speech was torn up and that a new one focusing on unity has been rewritten. That will come tomorrow.
However noticeably absent from the convention so far are several Trump family members, including his wife, son and daughter. Both Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump have had limited involvement in Trump’s campaign.
However, the campaign team has said Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump will appear Thursday night when the president takes the stage. Melania, however will not speak this year as she previously did. The couple’s son Barron Trump is not expected to show up at the event.