Byron York: “There’s no doubt that for the Republicans who came to Cleveland, the convention, occasionally troubled, ended on a high note. (As such things go, the balloon drop at the end was epic.) This is impressionistic, but there seemed to be an unmistakable enthusiasm deficit in the convention’s first three days. Of course there were moments, like Rudy Giuliani’s amped-up address on Monday night. But in general, the excitement level seemed lower and significant numbers of seats remained empty, even during the prime-time parts of the program.”

“That changed with Trump’s appearance on Thursday. At the very least, the RNC finally had a lot of happy customers. The (vastly) bigger question, of course, is what those millions watching on TV thought. Did they see darkness and anger, as the commentariat did? Or did they see an extraordinary political performer with the potential to actually fix the nation’s problems? Now the campaign begins in earnest.”

Donald Trump “leaves the convention here with the most negative public image of any nominee in modern history, particularly among minority voters, according to recent polls, and with many Republicans still hesitant to accept him as their standard bearer,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Those headwinds to winning the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the presidency are particularly strong in some of the country’s more racially and ethnically diverse swing states, polling shows, including Colorado and Virginia, where Mrs. Clinton leads.”

“Her image, though, is nearly as tarnished as Mr. Trump’s, and the convention here made it clear that Republicans want to make her the focus of the race. Most of the speakers dwelled on her perceived failings, often to chants of ‘lock her up.'”

Los Angeles Times: “Not only did the thematically hop-scotching speech provide the first glimpse of a ‘presidential’ Trump, it offered the perfect end to the most bizarre race in Republican history and certainly one of the more unconventional conventions in recent memory.”

“As in the Republican race, nothing at the convention went as planned. All the talk of blocking Trump’s nomination came to naught, as, mercifully, did fears of violent protest.  Melania Trump’s much anticipated speech went from triumph to plagiarism controversy in a matter of minutes. Anti-Trump House leader Paul Ryan caved but Ted Cruz didn’t. And though no one talked to an empty chair, the string of reality stars, minor-league celebrities and little-known motivational speakers brought its own sense of the bizarre.”

“Even before a self-described billionaire called himself the voice of the forgotten man, the fourth and final night doubled down on the convention’s commitment to expectation defiance.”

Jim Tankersley: “America has traditions that are ingrained. Every power ballad since 1973 is a direct descendant of ‘Free Bird.’ Every summer blockbuster is a riff on ‘Jaws.’ And every Republican presidential nominee since 1988 has run on an economic platform derived from Ronald Reagan.”

“Until tonight, when Donald Trump chews through the conservative economic consensus like a shark in the water.”

Timothy Egan: “They didn’t riot in the streets of Cleveland, as Donald Trump said his supporters would do had things not gone his way. But you saw the raw essence of a riot, the madness and loss of reason, on display in four days of chaos at the Republican National Convention.”

“For a campaign now devoted to ‘law and order,’ the launch was mob rule: in spirit, in tone, in words. Long after we’ve forgotten Trump’s closing speech — that paean to self, that nightmare portrait of an America where the lights have gone out — we will remember the savagery just below the surface.”

A new University of New Hampshire poll shows Hillary Clinton just ahead of Donald Trump in the Granite State, 39% to 37%.

Most interesting: “Neither candidate can clear the 40-percent threshold, but it’s not because voters are torn between the two, the poll shows. Eighteen percent of likely voters said they intend to support another candidate, and only 6 percent were undecided.”

A contentious Republican National Convention is coming to an end, with Donald Trump finally addressing the delegates as his party’s nominee. Can he turn things around?

Ezra Klein: “Tonight, Donald J. Trump will accept the Republican Party’s nomination for president of the United States. And I am, for the first time since I began covering American politics, genuinely afraid.”

“Donald Trump is not a man who should be president. This is not an ideological judgment. This is not something I would say about Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio. This is not a disagreement over Donald Trump’s tax plan or his climate policies. This is about Trump’s character, his temperament, his impulsiveness, his basic decency.”

“He pairs terrible ideas with an alarming temperament; he’s a racist, a sexist, and a demagogue, but he’s also a narcissist, a bully, and a dilettante. He lies so constantly and so fluently that it’s hard to know if he even realizes he’s lying. He delights in schoolyard taunts and luxuriates in backlash.”