MILWAUKEE, WI – Former President Donald Trump, in the longest presidential nomination acceptance address in modern political history, made a pitch for national unity in the culminating moment of the Republican National Convention.

The former president, in a somber address that focused in part on last weekend’s attempted assassination attempt at a rally in western Pennsylvania and also included Trump going off-script and dishing out plenty of red meat for the MAGA faithful, emphasized that he was “running to be president for all of America, not half of America,” because “there is no victory in winning for half of America.”

But for Republicans emerging from the four-day convention in swing state Wisconsin’s largest city, the unity they were emphasizing was in their own party.

“It’s literally the most unified I’ve seen the party,” said veteran New Hampshire-based Republican consultant Mike Biundo.

The GOP has seen plenty of internal divisions in the past decade and a half, from the rise of the Tea Party to the dominance of the MAGA movement. But this week’s convention was a clear sign that the former president’s takeover of the GOP was complete.

“A lot of times you have these conventions, and it makes it seem like it’s actually unified, but this time, everybody is unified,” said Biundo, who served as a senior adviser on Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign but in the 2024 presidential primary race worked for rival Vivek Ramaswamy. “The Republican Party has turned a corner, and it’s about as unified as it’s ever been.”

Ross Berry, a former Republican strategist who was later elected to the state House of Representatives, agreed.

“I’ve never seen the party this united, and I’ve been doing New Hampshire politics since 2012,” he said.

Berry, who stepped down from the House after moving earlier this year from Manchester to Weare and who’s running this autumn in a new district, supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP primaries and worked for a top DeSantis-aligned super PAC.

“I’ve never seen the party this united behind a candidate,” he said.

Berry complimented Trump’s political discipline amid the turmoil surrounding President Joe Biden, who’s facing a rising chorus of calls from within the Democratic Party to end his re-election bid in the wake of soaring questions over his mental and physical abilities to serve another four years in the White House following last month’s disastrous debate performance against Trump.

“This is so nice that he’s sticking with his message,” Berry said of Trump. “He’s done a really good job of just letting Joe Biden burn his campaign to the ground and not getting out there and messing it up.”

State Sen. Bill Gannon of Sandown, who was a leading Granite State supporter and surrogate for former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley during the GOP presidential primary, was also in Milwaukee attending the convention as part of the New Hampshire delegation.

“We’re all on board,” he said of the delegation’s support for Trump. “He’s what America needs right now.”

Haley originally wasn’t invited to speak at the convention, but she was a late add after the assassination attempt against Trump and she addressed the crowd in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum on Tuesday night, followed by DeSantis. While both Haley and DeSantis battled Trump in a divisive and at times combustible primary, both strongly showcased their support for a unified GOP under Trump.

“She helped unite the people who were on the fence,” Gannon said of Haley’s address. “We needed some like Nikki to bring the people who are stragglers behind, and now I think we’re all on board up and down the country.”

And he noted that the differences between a Trump supporter and a Haley supporter pale in comparison to the differences between Trump and Biden supporters.

New Hampshire, besides holding the first-in-the-nation presidential primary, is a key swing state in general elections.

Gannon predicted that the GOP national convention will “guarantee us a Republican governor, a Republican Senate” back in New Hampshire. He said the convention was “good for the party, good for Trump, good for New Hampshire.”

Berry said the four-day confab in the Midwest “gets Republicans united back home.”

“It’s a good message to send back home to these New England Republicans, New Hampshire Republicans, that tend to drift more center-right, that ‘hey, this is our guy,’” Berry said. “We’ve got a candidate with a message who’s winning and he’s winning in the polls.”

Asked how the convention will impact Republicans running in close races back home, Biundo noted “the energy coming out of this will translate into energy on the ground and the grassroots. That means more phone calls, more door knocks.”

He forecast that the messaging coming out of the convention is “going to help Republicans up and down the ticket.”

Democrats see it a different way.

Kathy Sullivan, who served for years at New Hampshire Democratic Party chair and as a committee member from the Granite State on the Democratic National Committee, downplayed the chorus of GOP unity.

“It’s typical for people to come out of convention feeling that way – happy and excited,” she said. “That’s not a surprise.”

Sullivan pointed to the “reality” of the large on-the-ground advantage in grassroots outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts the Democrats in New Hampshire hold over the Republicans.

“New Hampshire’s coordinated campaign has a lot more boots on the ground.”

“I think you have a lot of energy and excitement on the Democratic side,” she said.

Pointing to the turmoil surrounding the president’s re-election campaign, she said people in New Hampshire are “just going to put their heads down and work hard for all the Democrats.”