Campaign 2020 July 16, 2020

Attendance Will Now Be Limited At Republican National Convention “Celebrations”

CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd at the end of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party's nomination. An estimated 50,000 people are expected in Cleveland, including hundreds of protesters and members of the media. The four-day Republican National Convention kicked off on July 18. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Donald Trump wanted a jam-packed Republican National Convention in August, that’s why he fought to move the event from Charlotte, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida. He moved it to get “full attendance in the Arena.” But now things will now be scaled back in Jacksonville after all. The writing was on the wall as coronavirus cases rapidly rose in Florida and several GOP Senators opted out. Today the committee behind the affair announced attendance will be significantly limited. Delegates will be the only ones allowed to attend. The 2020 GOP Convention website says:

As stated above, admittance to the convention venue for the first three days of the convention celebration in Jacksonville (August 24, 25, 26) will be limited to regular delegates only. For the final day (Thursday, August 27) when President Donald J. Trump will publicly accept the nomination, we plan that each delegate, their guest, and alternate delegates will be permitted to attend.

Remember, one reason the convention was moved away from Charlotte was because of the precautions the city was putting into place, that would be enforced at the convention as well. Now, similar precautions will be put in place in Jacksonville. The committee writes that “We plan to implement a variety of health protocols in order to ensure a safe event. This plan includes but is not limited to on-site temperature checks, available PPE, aggressive sanitizing protocols and available COVID-19 testing.”

ABC News adds:

The North Carolina Democratic party said in a statement Thursday morning that President Trump finally recognized that a full scale convention with no safety measure would be dangerous.
“With today’s news, the President has finally recognized what Governor Cooper had been saying for weeks — that a full-scale convention with no safety measures would be dangerous and deeply irresponsible. If it wasn’t already obvious that Donald Trump’s attacks against the Governor were purely political, it is now,” NCDP Communications Director Austin Cook said.

Meanwhile, many of the plans for the convention are still up in the air. NPR reports, “The specific location of speeches and other events remains unsettled, with McDaniel listing the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, an indoor facility seating 15,000 people, along with other nearby outdoor facilities as locations that will host different daytime and evening events.”