“I couldn't be more proud to stand with Donald Trump, and we are shoulder to shoulder in this contest. And sometimes what I've learned, Matthew, and you'll learn when you're governor of North Carolina, is sometimes things don't always come out like you mean,” Pence said. “Donald Trump and I are absolutely determined to work together. We have different styles, you might have noticed that … But differences in style should never be confused with differences in conviction.”

Trump’s ability to survive the current stretch will depend in part on the ability of Pence to keep going out with a brave face and reassuring Republicans who are wavering on Trump. That’s just what he did Thursday, and if he sounded a little bit defensive, it was hard to blame him. “Up until just a short time ago it looked like he was out there all alone but now this party is united, this movement is united, and we’re going to make Donald Trump the next president of the United States,” he said.

The Republican vice-presidential nominee demonstrated the differences in style and the overlap in substance during a nearly 30-minute speech, before taking a half-dozen questions from a crowd of about 400. It was far calmer than the boisterous atmosphere at most rallies featuring the name atop the ticket. Donald Trump likes to play Puccini at his rallies; Pence’s was in an opera house, and the music was soft and twangy. Trump wings it; Pence spoke fluently, but stuck close to a familiar template and carefully crafted lines. Trump likes to assail the media; Pence did so, too, but he approached the matter with humor rather than ire.

“The party in power seems helpless to figure out our nominee,” Pence said. “And of course I’m referring to the media.” He added, “The media and the Democrats, they have the same problem. They all keep telling each other the usual methods are going to work against him. They keep thinking they’ve done him in. And then they turn on the television the next morning and Donald Trump is still standing and fighting, and he will make America great again!”

There’s no doubt that Trump is still fighting, but just how tall he’s standing is another question. A series of recent polls have shown his standing plummeting, and a growing drumbeat of Republicans are either abandoning their support for the ticket or edging that way with increasingly sharp criticisms. The rocky week didn’t shake the Trump-Pence supporters I talked to. They, too, tended to blame the press for overhyping or misrepresenting things. “I have no doubt we’re going to win, but it still bothers me,” said Cherie Gift, who driven 45 minutes from the town of Nashville to be at the rally. (That was nothing—Jack Snyder told me he’d driven three hours from Emerald Isle to attend.) Her friend Becky Bost, from Edgecombe County, was thrilled by Pence’s presence. “He’s like mayonnaise on a ham sandwich!” she said. “Donald is the ham. Pence complements him.”