Cities across the country are turning down the opportunity to host the 2020 Republican National Convention, where President Trump is expected to be nominated for a second term.
The cities that have rejected hosting duties insist Trump and today’s divisive politics are not factors in their decisions. They instead cite high security costs and disruptions in the normal flow of business and traffic.
But Trump is almost certainly a factor in some cities’ decisions to opt out.
“Most of the cities that have turned down the RNC are Democratic cities,” said Evan Siegfried, a New York-based Republican strategist.
“Their leaders do not want to suffer blowback with their residents for hosting Trump and neither do they want to have local business owners angry because protestors smashed their store windows.”
Any convention attracts protestors, but the interest and passion stirred up in the Trump era, breathlessly covered by cable news networks, is expected to attract throngs of presidential critics to a host city in 2020.
Adam Bruns, managing editor at Site Selection magazine, said any city hoping to host a mammoth event like a political convention would have to take security, protests and disruption into account.
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Only three cities are even in the running to host the GOP in 2020 — and only one, Charlotte, N.C., is public and open about its interest.
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Representatives from the Nevada GOP pitched the Republican National Committee’s site selection committee last week on Las Vegas, but city officials aren’t on board. A spokesman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said the city had declined to submit a bid. The authority was not aware of another bid submitted on Las Vegas’s behalf.
San Antonio, which had been interested in the process, has pulled out.
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Nashville and Philadelphia, two other cities that were once part of the process, also pulled out.
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Ron Kaufman, the longtime head of the RNC’s site selection committee, said cities became increasingly conscious of security costs after Homeland Security officials began designating political conventions as national security events, a decision made in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.
“They’re a little bit worried about costs and they’re a little bit worried about demonstrations,” Kaufman said. “It’s getting harder and harder to find venues that can be tied up for as long as it takes for a modern convention to take place. That’s a problem.”
Other cities say they cannot afford to block off venues where the convention would be held, usually a sporting arena that can hold tens of thousands of delegates, volunteers, media and VIPs. Parties typically ask cities to reserve those spaces for as long as six weeks before the convention begins, to accommodate construction and technology upgrades.
Kaufman said Cleveland’s experience is a selling point. While Cleveland shelled out tens of millions for security, a post-convention analysis found the convention led to a $185 million economic windfall for the city.
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- Discussion
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Cities across the country are turning down the chance to host GOP's 2020 convention https://t.co/02Hymj6eZQ pic.twitter.com/zgD0v293BY
— The Hill (@thehill) May 11, 2018
Just so they don’t come to Pittsburgh. Western PA has enough trouble on a normal day between constant gridlock getting to and from the city and an increase in violent crime. We don’t need the Trumpers, the Klan, ANTIFA, Black Lives Matter and a bunch of drunken politicians mucking up the place.
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