Blue Milwaukee places economic hopes in GOP convention aimed at defeating Biden

MILWAUKEE — When the mayor of Milwaukee welcomed journalists for a tour of the sports arena where Republicans will hold their presidential convention next year, he started by addressing the proverbial elephant in the room.

“Some of you know this, some of you don’t,” Cavalier Johnson said with a smirk, leaning into the mic as though to tell a secret. “I’m not a Republican. In fact, I’m a proud Democrat.”

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The Republican National Committee was hosting dozens of media outlets in Wisconsin last Thursday for an update on convention logistics, and Johnson wanted to make clear he was not there in a political capacity.

“That means my role here is different,” he said. Johnson went on to voice his hopes for the convention, both as a Milwaukee native and its mayor, noting the opportunity it presents for the city’s economy and place on the national stage.

But his passing remark got at an underlying tension: A city that overwhelmingly voted for President Joe Biden will be the site where his 2024 rival is named the Republican nominee for president.

That circumstance is no accident. City leaders fought tooth and nail to bring the convention to Milwaukee, emphasizing to the RNC selection committee it would be a “turnkey” operation after Democrats scrapped their 2020 convention here due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The committee’s decision to choose Milwaukee has nonetheless created something of an unusual marriage, one in which the city’s hopes for an economic windfall intertwine with Republicans’ desire to flip Wisconsin red.

The convention could bring as much as $200 million to the region as an estimated 50,000 people descend upon Milwaukee in July for the four-day event. After the pandemic closures of 2020, the convention represents a welcome chance to recoup lost revenues.

But Johnson also sees an opportunity to showcase, to a national and perhaps global audience, Milwaukee as an attractive place to live and do business. To him, the partisan implications are entirely secondary to what could be a stepping stone to further economic growth.

“Even though they’re on the red team, and I’m on the blue team, regardless of what team you’re on, all of us support the green team, right?” Johnson told the Washington Examiner in an interview at his City Hall office.

(Photo courtesy of the mayor’s office)

“They obviously will have a candidate that they want to see win the presidential election. I want the other candidate to win the presidential election, but a well-functioning convention presents economic opportunity,” he added.

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Republicans’ mission is not solely a partisan one. The goal of the host committee, a nonprofit entity separate from the RNC, is to build up the Milwaukee businesses and residents who stand to benefit from the event.

But the convention is inextricably tied up in the party’s electoral hopes for Wisconsin, a perennial swing state that has been won or lost by fewer than 25,000 votes the last two presidential cycles.

The convention is, at its core, a messaging tool that allows the GOP to broadcast to the country its values as a party. Organizers jokingly call the event, to be piped into the homes of millions of prospective voters, a “four-day TV show” they hope will energize the grassroots.

But alongside the planning for that broadcast, Republicans have made a more local calculation — investing in Milwaukee is good politics.

Delegates were encouraged to donate school supplies when in town for their first summer meeting of the convention, and just last week, the RNC deposited $100,000 into the only minority-owned bank in the state.

Republicans are realistic about the electoral inroads they can make in the city itself. After all, Biden won Milwaukee County by 37 points in 2020. But they believe the convention, and the signal its location sends to voters, could be a difference-maker with independents and soft Democrats in the suburbs.

“This is an opportunity for us to show our values and to be good partners with Milwaukee and also to show Wisconsin, don’t believe everything you read about Republicans,” said Anne Hathaway, the chairwoman of the convention’s organizing committee.

City leaders emphasized that opportunity in their pitch to the RNC, but they also attempted to head off any notion that Milwaukee would be hostile to Republicans as the site selection committee considered conservative alternatives like Nashville, Tennessee.

In his meetings with RNC officials, Johnson cited the “compassionate example” set by former President George W. Bush, in particular his conduct after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as his inspiration for entering politics. But the chief message to Republicans was that no city would be more welcoming than Milwaukee.

Paul Bartolotta, a Milwaukee restaurateur who hosted the selection committee at his Lake Park Bistro in February 2022, six months before the RNC chose the city, said that attitude is, in part, a function of Midwestern hospitality.

(David Sivak/Washington Examiner)

But it’s clear that Milwaukee, long overshadowed by neighboring Chicago, the host city for Democrats’ 2024 convention, is hungry for its moment in the spotlight.

Bartolotta, a guest judge on Bravo’s Top Chef, noted the city successfully recruited the show to film in Milwaukee. To local officials, the Republican convention represents yet more affirmation that Milwaukee “punches above its weight.”

“It was important for us to say we’re a nonpartisan city. We’re a city that’s open for business. We’re a city that wants to show who we are,” Bartolotta, who owns 17 restaurants in the Milwaukee area, said.

“We made it very clear, both when the DNC and the RNC were interested in our city, that we were not looking at this as a political initiative,” he added. “We were looking at this as an opportunity to welcome people to Milwaukee.”

The city has spent the better part of a decade building out its infrastructure for such a convention. Milwaukee only finished the Fiserv Forum, the 17,500-seat arena where the event will be held, in 2018.

(David Sivak/Washington Examiner)

That sports center was viewed as critical to retaining the Milwaukee Bucks, the championship-winning basketball team, in the city, but it’s obvious Milwaukee is making a much bigger bet on its downtown from a walk around the arena, which anchors a 30-acre complex dubbed the Deer District.

The vision for that complex is not yet complete. The other day, Milwaukee officials gave final approval to build a music venue just south of the arena. Hotel capacity is another priority for developers.

But Johnson views the Republican convention as a demonstration to the world that Milwaukee is ready to host major events. Just a stone’s throw away, the city is doubling the convention space at its 1.3 million-square-foot Baird Center.

“I think it’ll open the door for other large-scale political, sports, entertainment conventions and events to happen in Milwaukee, which will, in turn, bring more eyes, more attention, more visitors, hopefully more business, and therefore more population, to the city of Milwaukee,” Johnson said. “I see this as the first of many.”

The impacts of the convention will be far-reaching. Although most of the festivities will take place at the sports arena, the RNC has listed more than 100 small businesses that can serve as auxiliary space for conventiongoers.

The foot traffic alone is expected to be a boon for the downtown and beyond. “As an Uber driver, I’m more than happy for all the people without cars to come visit our city,” quipped Robb Pieper, a resident of nearby Wauwatosa.

Republicans have been active partners in that vision. Johnson, who called his relationship with the RNC “stellar,” noted the host committee took up his idea to speak with black entrepreneurs about possible opportunities to work with the RNC at a small business incubator on Milwaukee’s north side.

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But more than any windfall that might be realized from the convention, Bartolotta wants visitors to leave feeling like they found in Milwaukee an undiscovered gem. The convention’s success, he said, is simply a “short-term view of a bigger reality.”

“More importantly, did we create a lot of friends who are going to leave and be champions of our fair city and say, ‘I had no idea. I love Milwaukee’?” he said. “That’s what we want.”