Trump might walk around with his foot in his mouth and maybe his wife does spend her evening cutting and pasting Michelle Obama speeches, but if opinion polls are to be taken seriously, Americans are focused more on other aspects of the campaign.

According to the Real Clear Politics average of all opinion polls - which is way more meaningful that dwelling on any single poll – Trump has narrowed the gap to less than three points.

At precisely 2.7 points it is well within the margin of error for eight of the most recent polls.

To the extent that the first day of the convention held together, the glue was more a tribal hatred of Hillary Clinton, than any the kind of party unity and policy coherence that traditionally have been the stuff of politics. And it provoked an analytical consensus that while is made for good convention, it was bad TV.

"The enemy is here," conventioneers were told by one of six speakers, all military veterans, and all of who portrayed the US almost as a child lost in a dangerous world – who could be saved only by men with more guns.

Fear was the speakers' motivator on the theme of 'let's make America safe again.'

Seeming to be on the verge of losing it completely, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was shrieking as he declared war on behalf of all Americans, as he addressed Islamic terrorists: "you know who you are and we're coming to get you."

It didn't matter a jot that a range of investigations had discredited much of the convention's Benghazi narrative – not least the Republican's own congressional inquiry. That was because in Giuliani's view, the jig is almost up – "There is no next election! This is it!"

And in relying too much on the grief of speakers who lost relatives at Benghazi or in crimes that involved illegal migrants, the tone and temper of Monday evening was, as one observer saw it, "a headfirst [dive] into the hot springs of conservative anger."

But Trump will keep doing it his way. The candidate always controls the four-yearly convention and Monday's program reflected Trump's obsession with the party base – it's as though he doesn't appreciate that the primaries are over, he has the nomination in the bag and the challenge now is to win over the rest of America.

Monday's speakers dwelt more on themselves and their life experiences than revealing or teasing out anything about Trump that might swing a hesitant undecided voter to get behind him. And that included Trump's wife, whose talk, seemingly co-written by Michelle Obama, was devoid of the personal gems that listeners might take away and share.

Trump too dwelt more on himself.

One of the more peculiar moments on Monday night came in the midst of an account by two veterans who survived the Benghazi firefight in 2012 – but instead of listening to them, Trump felt a need to call into Fox News, interrupting the channel's live coverage of the soldiers' tag-team talk that Trump thought was important enough to make it a feature of the convention.

This week is Trump's opportunity to reverse a voter lack of trust in him and their anxiety about his temperament and character. He also needs to finesse a sense that he's a wrecking ball in the GOP.

That's what sets the challenge for the second day of the convention, the theme for which is 'make America work again.'

Trump finally has a bit of political star power in Tuesday's line-up of speakers. They include House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and it will be fascinating to watch them dance around the hole in the Republican policy donut that Trump has exposed – that is that working class Americans have faired badly under Republicans.

Let's see how they spin that.