Politics

GOP looking at Orange County for possible convention site, but mayor says party hasn’t reached out

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — With the president pushing to move the 2020 GOP convention out of North Carolina, Gov. Ron DeSantis is making a play to move the event to Florida, with Orlando and Jacksonville emerging as top choices.

“We want to host it,” DeSantis said at a recent news conference in which he discussed the desire to bring the convention to Florida.

On Wednesday, the Florida GOP put out a tweet saying, “Florida’s eager to roll out the red carpet and welcome the GOP National Convention,” adding that, “We are open for business! #Jacksonville #Orlando #Miami.”

Read: Trump says GOP is considering moving convention from North Carolina

“There’s been no conversation with us, and so until that happens that’s just speculation,” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said. “In order to consider hosting the convention, we’d have to do our due diligence, what is required, and I can tell you that to host such a convention is significant.”

Demings touched on the challenges of hosting such a convention, which, as of now, is slated for the last week of August.

On Wednesday evening, Demings said he wouldn’t ask his commissioners to support the Republican National Convention coming to Orlando if the county wasn’t reimbursed 100% of the general coast to host and pay for law enforcement, given the likely number of protesters.

“There is a horrible amount of planning that goes into one of these,” Florida-based GOP consultant Jacob Perry said. “I know 2016 it was literally a year just to get all of the logistics straight and timing and scheduling and attendees. Even just moving people in and out far more of an adventure than people realize.”

Complicating matters is the reason North Carolina is balking at the convention: crowd size.

With continued concerns over the spread of the coronavirus, North Carolina has asked for a “scaled-down” convention to reduce the chance of infection. That concern will need to be addressed by any city that takes in the convention.

“They can shop around, but it’s a gamble,” said Jim Swift, a senior editor at The Bulwark. “This is why the president is trying to pull out of North Carolina. He wanted the governor to make a guarantee that he couldn’t make.”

Read: Trump looks elsewhere after GOP convention spat with NC gov

Swift, who worked on the 2008 GOP convention as a GOP staffer and later attended the 2012 and 2016 conventions, also pointed out that taxpayers will have to foot the cost for the convention.

In 2016, local taxpayers in Cleveland paid about $12 million for the RNC and taxpayers in Philadelphia paid about $10 million for the DNC.

But with convention space and area space open, and hotels largely vacant due to the economic shutdown, Perry notes that the convention would at least be an event that would bring people back to work.

“If you’re the governor you have to think about, 'We need to start putting people back to work,” Perry said.

Read: Phase 2 in Florida begins Friday: Here’s what can reopen