Hillary Clinton has chosen Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate.

New York Times: “About 30 million Americans watched Mr. Trump’s climactic acceptance speech on Thursday evening on the major cable news and broadcast channels… That was about 200,000 fewer viewers than the last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, received when he addressed his party’s convention in 2012.”

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.”