The selection of a conference host metropolis has taken on an necessary symbolic position in recent times, with each events utilizing them to ship statements of intent about competing for necessary swing states — and to direct consideration and organizing sources to these locations. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have gone exterior a possible battleground for a conference metropolis since 2004, although coronavirus interfered with each events’ plans in 2020.
Pittsburgh and Milwaukee — which Democrats picked as their 2020 host metropolis after shedding Wisconsin for the primary time in many years within the earlier election — are in two of the nation’s closest battleground states, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, whereas Nashville and Salt Lake Metropolis are in solid-red states Tennessee and Utah. However that hardly guidelines out the latter two finalists.
Issues together with lodge capability, amenities, company sponsorship and different elements can even play main roles in conference choice, as does a metropolis’s capacity to help the large safety equipment that comes with a presidential nomination.
“The Republican Nationwide Committee is grateful for and appreciative of the overwhelming curiosity from cities throughout the nation to host the 2024 Republican Nationwide Conference. We’ll proceed the method, evaluation bids, and talk with potential hosts to listen to extra about what their cities have to supply,” stated Richard Walters, the RNC’s chief of workers.
Republicans have been quietly orchestrating the seek for a conference metropolis, winnowing the checklist from eight cities right down to a remaining 4. In October, officers from every of the cities fascinated with hosted the 2024 occasion traveled to the RNC’s Capitol Hill headquarters, a gathering that successfully kicked off the choice course of.
Longtime GOP fundraiser Anne Hathaway was picked in August to move up the RNC’s website choice committee. Representatives for the cities into consideration are anticipated to be current on the committee’s upcoming Salt Lake Metropolis winter assembly.
Different cities initially into consideration included Houston, San Antonio, Las Vegas and Kansas Metropolis, Mo., in accordance with the individual aware of the deliberations.
Among the cities into consideration are already acquainted to the method. Milwaukee beat out a number of different cities in a protracted bid course of for the 2020 Democratic conference, although the occasion was canceled amid the pandemic and the social gathering selected to carry a digital conference as an alternative utilizing amenities in President Joe Biden’s house state of Delaware.
That very same yr, Republicans had been to carry their conference in Charlotte, N.C., earlier than town determined to name off the occasion as a consequence of considerations about infections. (Republicans nonetheless took care of some official conference enterprise in Charlotte.) The social gathering then thought of a number of cities as a alternative, together with Nashville. Republican officers ultimately chosen Jacksonville, Fla., however the plans had been scrapped, and the GOP ended up holding a virtual-heavy occasion which, controversially, included utilizing the White Home to stage then-President Donald Trump’s conference speech.
Nashville submitted its 2024 Republican conference bid in December, as did Salt Lake Metropolis. Final month, Milwaukee additionally formally submitted its bid with a 200-plus web page utility. Former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who just lately resigned to take an ambassadorship within the Biden administration, beforehand stated he was additionally fascinated with making one other play to host the Democratic Nationwide Conference after the 2020 cancellation.
Like Milwaukee, Nashville can also be within the combine for the Democratic conference in 2024 and should make a proper pitch for the occasion, the Tennessean reported final month. The Democratic Nationwide Committee despatched letters to a lot of municipal leaders earlier this yr inviting bids.
