Milwaukee — Milwaukeeans love Miller beer, Brewers baseball, and the “Bronze Ponds” statue.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s deepest blue city and the state with the highest voter turnout, also favors the Democrats.
So it might be hard for some to accept that while Milwaukee will host former President Donald Trump and the Republican National Convention next week, Chicago, a larger city 90 miles to the south, will welcome President Joe Biden and the Democrats in August.
It didn’t help to soften the mood among cautious Democrats after President Trump used the word “horrible” to describe Milwaukee just a month before the party’s national convention begins on Monday.
Even more disturbing is that Milwaukee was supposed to host the 2020 Democratic National Convention, but it didn’t happen because of COVID. Local restaurant, bar and event venue owners say they haven’t been able to secure the reservations they promised during the RNC. And protesters have complained that the city is trying to keep them too far away from the convention site to have an impact.
“I wish I was out of town,” Jake Schneider, 29, said as he walked past a statue of Fonzie, the character played by Henry Winkler in the 1970s Milwaukee-set sitcom “Happy Days.” “I’m not that excited about the Republicans coming to town.”
Schneider, who lives in a downtown apartment, said Trump “hurt himself” with his comments about Milwaukee.
“I hope to prove him wrong and show him how great this city is,” Schneider said.
Ryan Clancy, a self-described democratic socialist who is a state legislator and serves on the Milwaukee County Commission, put it more bluntly: “It’s embarrassing that we rolled out the red carpet for the RNC.”
Still, Democratic and Republican convention advocates point to the opportunity to show off Milwaukee and Wisconsin at their conventions, which run through Thursday, and the potential economic boom.
“People want to have a convention and be successful and take Milwaukee to the next level,” said Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, a Democrat. “Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee no matter where he happens. So it didn’t matter if it happened in Milwaukee. It didn’t matter if it happened at Mar-a-Lago.”
Milwaukee has been in the national spotlight in recent years, after the Bucks won the 2021 NBA championship and the latest season of the reality TV show “Top Chef,” which was filmed in the city this spring and features Milwaukee chefs who made it to the finals.
As Trump’s “horrible” remarks suggest, Milwaukee has long been a target of conservative Republicans, who have pointed to the city’s crime, low-ranking schools and financial woes as examples of Democratic leadership deficiencies.
“We hope this convention will showcase all that Milwaukee has to offer,” said Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming. “But like many other Democratic cities, Milwaukee is a city with very important issues.”
Democrats chose Milwaukee as the site of their last convention, but the 2020 Democratic National Convention was moved to an online event due to the pandemic.
The fact that both Democrats and Republicans have chosen this city in succession speaks to the importance of this state.
Wisconsin is one of the few key battleground states that could potentially be decisive in this year’s presidential election. It was once one of the so-called “blue wall” states that Democrats relied on, but Trump narrowly won it in 2016, paving the way for his surprise victory. Biden flipped the state in 2020, and both campaigns are targeting it heavily this year.
But Milwaukee is unwavering. It voted 79% for Biden in 2020. After losing that year, Trump tried and failed to disqualify thousands of voters in Milwaukee, falsely portraying late-arriving voters as fraudulent, with so many absentee ballots.
Republicans say holding their convention in Milwaukee will energize their base. The city itself is Democratic, but its suburbs are a battleground in the state. Once red, Democrats have made inroads since 2016, particularly among suburban women who have turned away from Trump and his conservative agenda.
Clancy and other Democrats urged Milwaukee to withdraw from the race before it was even chosen as the host city, just as Nashville withdrew from the race after it refused to host a Republican.
But the biggest commotion came in June, when Trump used the word “horrible” to talk about Milwaukee during a private meeting with Republicans on Capitol Hill. Attendees differed on whether Trump was talking about crime, election concerns or something else, and he later said at a Wisconsin rally that he “loved” Milwaukee, but to some Democrats it only reaffirmed previous concerns about hosting Republicans.
Milwaukee-based brewery Mobcraft shows off its Midwestern city’s sense of humor and love of beer by releasing a “(not) terrible urban IPA.”
As the tournament approaches, some local business owners are questioning estimates that the event will bring in $200 million in revenue.
Of the six venues operated by Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater Group, only one is booked for the week of the convention, said Gary Witt, the group’s president and CEO. Witt said the group stands to lose more than $100,000 if the venue isn’t used, and he worries about the impact the convention will have on other Milwaukee businesses.
“If these people are gone, we won’t be relevant to them,” Witt said of convention attendees.
Protesters have been trying to spread their protests throughout the week, but they say they are too far from the convention venue.
Omar Flores, RNC Coalition March Chair, said he was confident the protest would be peaceful and would leverage the national platform they have. He said the coalition had to fight to secure a visible and audible march route at the convention after Milwaukee Democratic leaders “totally betrayed us, completely betrayed the city, and refused to listen to the people.”
Clancy, a Democratic state representative, said holding the convention in the city where he was born and raised could galvanize progressives.
“If we have a critical mass of people who hate us in our city, I think that will be enough to mobilize people for the primaries in August and November,” he said.
