After a Big Week for Democrats, One Good Day for Trump

It was a moment the political world had been wondering about for weeks.

If Vice President Kamala Harris had a good convention, would it knock former President Donald J. Trump further off his game?

Would all that positive press for Ms. Harris — the big ratings, celebrity froth and the double-barreled Obama zingers — drive Mr. Trump deeper into his most self-destructive patterns?

At a Mexitalian restaurant in Las Vegas on Friday afternoon, we seemed to have our answer: It would not — at least for now.

Mr. Trump had turned up at the restaurant to stand among service industry workers and promote his “no tax on tips” policy proposal. He stayed mostly focused — he did not talk all about himself but rather about the plight of waiters and bartenders. He told them it was Ms. Harris who cast a tiebreaking vote to provide the Internal Revenue Service with funds to hire 87,000 people — the very people who would be snatching their hard-earned tips. (The truth is a bit more nuanced than all that.)

He did not devolve into any racist tangents about Ms. Harris, or call anyone a fat pig, or pick a fight with a popular governor from his own party, or tell dark tales about young women being raped, strangled and murdered by immigrants.

He seemed almost chipper (at least more chipper than the night before, when he called into Fox News with his initial meandering reviews of Ms. Harris’s big speech). He talked about how the restaurant’s owner had started as a dishwasher and worked his way up, and joked with him about how he must have lots of cash now. The owner compared Mr. Trump to Ronald Reagan. “Thank you, Javier,” said Mr. Trump, looking touched.