Orlando, Jacksonville among cities RNC will tour as GOP convention exits Charlotte
Officials from the Republican National Committee plan to visit at least two Florida cities as possible landing spots for a celebration of President Donald Trump’s reelection nomination now that Trump has vowed to move his party’s summer convention out of North Carolina.
Orlando and Jacksonville are under consideration as locations for Trump to give his acceptance speech, an RNC official told McClatchy. Dallas, Nashville, New Orleans and Phoenix are also on the list.
“I’ve talked with the folks at the [Republican National Committee],” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters Wednesday afternoon, about 12 hours after Trump said the RNC would seek a new host city outside of Charlotte. “Orlando, just because of the hotel capacity and arena, would be an obvious place. I know Jacksonville is very much interested in having it.”
Florida Republicans have been lobbying for the party to relocate its nominating convention to Trump’s home state ever since the president began expressing frustrations with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s unwillingness to guarantee a full-blown political event amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Last month, prior to Trump’s initial threat on Twitter to pull the event from Charlotte, Florida Congressman Michael Waltz mentioned during a phone conversation with the president that Florida would be a more than willing alternative. Since then, Republicans have been at odds with Cooper, who is a Democrat, over the convention, with Trump and the Republican National Committee demanding assurances that the event will be held at “full capacity.”
Cooper on Tuesday said he could not guarantee the “full convention” envisioned by Trump and convention organizers that included 19,000 people in attendance at the Spectrum Center and nearby bars and restaurants operating at capacity. Cooper said it was “very unlikely” that Republicans could have the convention they had hoped for and offered to work on a scaled-down version — leading Trump to announce on Twitter a few hours later that the RNC would indeed seek a different host city.
“Governor Cooper is still in Shelter-In-Place Mode, and not allowing us to occupy the arena as originally anticipated and promised. Would have showcased beautiful North Carolina to the World, and brought in hundreds of ..millions of dollars, and jobs, for the State,” Trump tweeted. “Because of @NC_Governor, we are now forced to seek another State to host the 2020 Republican National Convention.”
The RNC has said that it still hopes to be able to conduct party business in Charlotte, where the city government has a contract to host the convention. Charlotte’s city attorney said Wednesday that the city is moving forward as if the convention will be held as previously planned. The RNC’s executive committee voted Wednesday to continue talks with Charlotte, but Communications Director Michael Ahrens said the party is also in talks with several other cities about hosting a celebration of Trump’s acceptance of the presidential nomination.
DeSantis, in a Wednesday press conference at Universal CityWalk in Orlando, didn’t appear ready to make any guarantees about hosting a “full capacity” convention — a massive ordeal that typically includes months of planning and millions of dollars in public investment. But he did say that Florida would assume its ability to hold the convention is a “default yes.”
“This is almost three months out. We’re probably going to be able to pull it off,” said DeSantis, noting that he’d also spoken with Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez about a possible South Florida convention. “But you know what? If it gets closer and you need to call an audible, heck, he has the CDC at his disposal. The president can tell us what needs to be done to be able to do it.”
Gimenez, a Republican, said in a text message Wednesday that Miami “would be interested” in hosting, though he acknowledged “it would be difficult at this stage.” Dan Gelber, the Democratic mayor of Miami Beach — which at one point had hoped to hold the Democratic Party’s July gathering at its convention center — previously told the Miami Herald that “it seems totally implausible” that hosting the convention in Miami would be less risky than hosting it in North Carolina.
Jerry Demings, Mayor of Orange County — where Orlando is located — said later Wednesday that no one from the RNC has reached out to discuss bringing the convention to Central Florida.
“We have not been contacted at all by anyone officially from the RNC about moving the convention here. Anything you hear is just mere speculation at this point,” Demings said during a press conference, adding that he would want to be completely reimbursed for any costs associated with hosting the event.
A Republican convention in Orlando could make for awkward politics given that Demings is married to Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings, a potential running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Tampa has also been raised as a possibility, given that the city hosted the Republican convention in 2012.
Jacksonville-area officials, meanwhile, have made it clear how much they want to host the convention.
“We welcome the opportunity to host the @GOPconvention in Jacksonville,” Mayor Lenny Curry tweeted Tuesday night. “A $100 million local impact event would be important for our city as an event/convention destination. City is ready for world class events &ready show the world we are open for business.”
And Waltz, the congressman who discussed moving the convention to Florida with Trump during a May 24 call about last weekend’s SpaceX launch, told the Miami Herald Wednesday that he mentioned the idea again Saturday with the president while aboard Air Force One during a flight from Washington to Central Florida.
“I’m just still pushing for Florida,” said Waltz, a Jacksonville native, who represents a coastal district that stretches from St. Augustine Beach to Cape Canaveral. “We asked him what he was thinking and I made the point again in terms of how critical Florida is to him, and that I think we would roll out the red carpet to have the convention there. What a shot in the arm it would be.”
Waltz said he believes Florida could host the event to the satisfaction of the RNC while also hosting it safely, with proper precautions to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. He said he’d love to see Jacksonville host the event, but also is pulling for Orlando, reportedly under consideration as an alternate host city.
“I’m biased. I’m from Jacksonville,” he said. “But both Jacksonville and Orlando book-end my district, and we continue to push.”
McClatchy DC reporters Dave Catanese and Brian Murphy contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 12:39 PM.
