Campaign 2020 June 11, 2020

Republican National Convention: A Tale Of Two Cities?

CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 21: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day 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)

It’s looking like the Republican National Convention may take place in two cities. On Wednesday, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said:

“We are going to keep our convention of, the business of the convention in Charlotte. That is for sure. It’s going to be smaller and scaled down. And then we are looking for a different city for a celebration.”

CNN is reporting that the RNC executive committee unanimously approved that plan late Wednesday and also agreed “to make no changes to the party’s 2016 platform.”

The party is contractually obligated to keep some portion of the convention in the North Carolina city, but the vote on Wednesday night will substantially pair down the official business, with each state and territory only sending six delegates to the gathering, for a total of 336 delegates where there would have been over 2,500.

Donald Trump still wants to accept the party’s nomination before a big crowd though and it looks like Jacksonville, Florida is the frontrunner. Mayor Lenny Curry has been courting the RNC, despite Florida currently experiencing a rise in coronavirus cases. And that’s not the only issue. The Washington Post reports that “RNC aides are scrambling to determine whether the northern Florida city has enough hotel rooms to accommodate the quadrennial event, which typically kicks off the final stretch of the presidential campaign.”

There are also worries about how crowds could potentially wreak havoc on the city. A petition on Change.org seeking to the keep the RNC out of Jacksonville reads, in part:

The damages incurred will take years to recover from. It would out weigh any financial benefits that the city could hope for. It is a fact this convention will bring with it the largest protests in the history of our country. During the recent protests in Jacksonville there were small riots, violence and destruction of property that occurred… A convention would attract protesters peaceful and violent from around the world with two opposite intense political views. It is a perfect storm for violence and destruction that has no benefit for the residents of Jacksonville.

And the Florida Times-Union says:

Jacksonville NAACP Branch President Isaiah Rumlin warned that the RNC coming to Jacksonville would discredit the progress Curry’s administration made a day earlier when he announced the removal of all confederate monuments from public property.
“Trump doesn’t need to come to Jacksonville. We don’t need him here,” Rumlin said. “Although the statues are gone, that’s just symbolic. Racism is still going on.”

The newspaper notes that “the convention will fall on the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday — where more than 200 Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council members attacked black people participating in lunch counter sit-in demonstrations.”