Trump's goal for the Republican convention is to prove Biden is too extreme for suburban voters

For Donald Trump, the mission over the next four nights of a Republican National Convention that is all about him is clear: convince enough suburban white voters that Joe Biden is too extreme for their moderate tastes.

The most controversial president in modern US history does not have to draw even with the former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee by the time the GOP convention wraps late on Thursday night. He merely has to pick up a few percentage points in a half dozen or so battleground states.

The strategy is to tighten the race with a series of damaging blows to Mr Biden, not win it with a single haymaker punch.

With all of September and October to continue selling Mr Biden and his running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, as the most liberal Democratic ticket ever, the president has ample time to draw even – and perhaps capture a second term.

After all, as Mr Trump showed during the 2016 race, with his repeated description of Hillary Clinton as "crooked", he is able and more than willing to turn any opponent into a demonic cartoon villain.

The president will speak each night, a departure from his predecessors, as he tries to turn the page after more damaging developments in recent days. His former top strategist, Steve Bannon, was arrested on charges of defrauding donors. The New York attorney general sued his business over allegations he cooked the books to secure loans. His hand-picked postmaster general was grilled by lawmakers over allegations he is trying to suppress Democratic mail-in votes.

Mr Trump has uttered false claim after false claim in recent weeks about what he calls automatic fraud if voters are mailed ballots without requesting them as states deal with fears of in-person voting amid the still-spreading coronavirus. Speaking of the virus, the president must also convince those suburban voters that he has a handle on the pandemic after Mr Biden and other top Democrats called him incompetent and disinterested in combating the disease.

Expect Mr Trump to use his and others' remarks during the mostly virtual convention to mostly, like a famous rock band, sing his greatest hits. As always with the former reality television host, expect the president to, like he did in 2016, make claims and promises that are as bold as they are vague.

"Most of the country right now is doing very, very well," he said in a semi-surprise visit to the only in-person portion of the RNC in Charlotte, the biggest city in North Carolina, where RealClearPolitics' average of several polls shows him up less than 1 percentage point. He repeated his misleading claims that Covid-19 mostly affects older people, which has been contradicted by multiple medical studies.

Heading into his second GOP convention, the president and Mr Biden do agree on one thing. "This is the most important election in the history of our country," as the president put it in Charlotte on Monday.

Democrats' virtual convention last week was rather bleak, with Mr Biden vowing to unite the country, saying if Americans come together they can "overcome this season of darkness in America" that he and Democrats contend was ushered in by Mr Trump.

"Here and now I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us, not the worst," Mr Biden said on Thursday night during his nomination-acceptance address in Wilmington, Delaware. "I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness."

Mr Trump will instead attempt to describe the state of the country very differently, even though he frequently warns of "carnage" and "anarchy" on American streets in places like Portland and Chicago. Each night's theme is upbeat, starting with a "Land of Promise" message on Monday. The idea is to convince those suburban voters who flocked to Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 and continue to tell pollsters they'll vote for Mr Biden that they are better off due to the policies Mr Trump and Republican lawmakers have enacted since he took office.

But the Republicans' four nights also will feature plenty of bleak political mud-slinging and allegations.

Where Democrats spent four nights calling Mr Trump corrupt, he plans to do the same.

"We caught them doing some really bad things in 2016. Let's see what happens," the president said on Monday referring to his contention the Obama administration "spied" on his campaign. "We got them doing some really bad things and we have to be very careful because they are trying it again with this whole 80 million mail-in ballots that they are working on, sending them out to people that didn't ask for them, they didn't ask, they just get them and it's not fair and it's not right and it's not going to be possible to tabulate, in my opinion."

The president will be making a political gamble with his allegations. That's because suburban voters have expressed fatigue and disgust with his antics, especially women who have blanched at what they see as his misogynistic comments and policies that target migrant families for separation at the southern border.

Nonetheless, Mr Trump's brief remarks at the convention's opening session on Monday afternoon were a signal of what's ahead this week.

"We have to be very, very careful and you have to watch, every one of you, you have to watch because bad things happened last time with these spying on our campaign and that goes to Biden and that goes to [Barack] Obama and we have to be very, very careful," he said, uttering the kind of murky allegation he has since entering politics full time five years ago.

"They will blame it on the post office. You can see them setting it up," he said as United States Postal Service chief

Louis DeJoy orders the removal of mail boxes and sorting machines he says is merely part of his mission to revamp the post office. "Be very careful and watch it very carefully because we have to win."

While Republicans are criticising Democrats for not spending much time on meaty policy proposals, a list of Mr Trump's second-term plans released late on Sunday night is equally vague. He even directed the convention to avoid adopting a new policy platform, something that would have been unthinkable for any other nominee in the past. Democrats pounced.

"Do you know what party also doesn't have a party platform?" tweeted Clinton White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart. "Putin's Party. MBS's party, Chairman Kim's Party."