Milwaukee, Nashville make final pitches to host GOP convention

Top leaders from Milwaukee and Nashville are in Washington on Tuesday making their final pitches to members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) in hopes of hosting its 2024 national convention.

The teams leading both cities’ bids will be at RNC headquarters today to make presentations to the party’s site selection committee, a top Republican with knowledge of the process told The Hill.

Their presentations will detail their plans for mounting a huge multimillion-dollar party for the GOP’s presidential nominee. The host committees will detail their plans to house the tens of thousands of people — delegates, alternates, party faithful and media — who will attend the convention, as well as their budgets and details about how those guests will move around the city.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel met with representatives from both cities last week.

This week, the power rests with the RNC’s site selection committee, headed by longtime Republican strategist Anne Hathaway of Indiana. Hathaway, who now runs her own consulting firm, is a former RNC chief of staff.

Hosting a political convention carries substantial costs for any city, but it brings substantial economic benefits and free publicity as well. The 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland brought an estimated $400 million to the city, while the Democratic convention in Philadelphia led to between $170 million and $350 million in economic activity, according to local estimates.

But a 2017 paper from researchers at Holy Cross found those estimates were probably too high. Those researchers documented an additional 29,000 room nights at area hotels during the convention week, a substantial boost in tax revenues that flow to city coffers.

Milwaukee is making its second straight pitch to host a national convention. The city won the right to host Democrats in 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic vastly curtailed most convention activities.

Nashville has never hosted a major party political convention. The national Constitution Party hosted its 2012 convention there, a far smaller gathering than what hosting the Republican convention would entail.

Both cities are also in the process of bidding to host the Democratic convention. Democrats have not made public a list of cities they plan to consider.