The Democratic National Committee insists that Milwaukee will remain a centerpiece of what's been reduced to a
mostly virtual convention this summer, but with only a fraction of the visitors coming to town and the threat of the COVID-19 coronavirus still looming, the once-promised national spotlight for the city is looking pretty dim.
It’s still unclear how many people will actually be in attendance at the Democratic National Convention’s main stage events in Milwaukee, but it’s been reduced enough to relocate from Fiserv Forum to the Wisconsin Center. State delegations have been urged to stay home and cast votes remotely, while each night of the convention is staged and broadcast live from Milwaukee, as well as from other satellite locations across the country.
Politico
reported on insider discussions of capping attendance at 1,000 people, but organizers contacted by BizTimes Milwaukee said they couldn’t confirm, saying it’s up to the guidance of local, state and federal public health officials.
What is clear, though, is that the convention’s crowd will be significantly smaller than the original projection of 50,000 visitors, and the event's economic impact on the region likely won’t be close to estimations of $200 million.
That's a hard pill to swallow for Milwaukee's business community, which was largely responsible for shelling out most of the $70 million needed to put on the event, said Tim Sheehy, president of Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce in an interview Thursday with BizTimes Milwaukee.
"The corporations that gave, gave because of the impact on Milwaukee," Sheehy said. "But giving also has an opportunity cost— that's money that's now not being spent in Milwaukee and it's money that (those businesses) don't have to spend in Milwaukee. This is not a bottomless fountain."
He said he doesn’t blame the DNC for the decision to go virtual with the convention. The value of having Milwaukee's name attached to a major political convention still stands Sheehy said, and the standards that Milwaukee met during the bid process indicated that it’s capable of hosting an event of this magnitude.
“But what we don’t have is the proof that we can pull it off,” said Sheehy.
Amid months of uncertainty around the convention’s format—and whether it would still take place in Milwaukee— some local leaders, including Sheehy, have tossed around the idea of Milwaukee hosting the convention in 2024.
Now, he questions whether the same level of financial support could be garnered from the business community a second time around when the benefit this year will likely be “10 or 20% of what it could have been.”
Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes has also been a supporter of bringing the DNC back to Milwaukee, if this year’s event would be held virtually. In an interview with BizTimes Milwaukee on Thursday, Barnes said he’d love to see Milwaukee on the top of the Democrats’ potential host city list in 2024, but the chances of being selected for two consecutive conventions is slim.
“I think the challenge in front of us is it’s much more difficult now,” he said. “If it went to an all-virtual convention, there may be more of a chance.”
Barnes said Wisconsin’s politics, coming off of President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory and the Democrats’ sweep of the 2018 mid-term election, was a huge selling point during the time of the bidding process, but that may not be the case in four years.
Gary Witt, co-owner and chief executive officer of The Pabst Theater Group, has been especially vocal about the DNC’s potential return to Milwaukee. He said he’s calling on local leaders, including Mayor Tom Barrett, County Executive David Crowley and VISIT Milwaukee, to “do what’s best for Milwaukee” and campaign to bring the convention back to the city in 2024.
“I think there’s a window of time here where if they’re able to gain public support—public support bends the rules of everything that we live in today,” said Witt. "Milwaukee deserves a full DNC."
He said the opportunity to host a major political convention (in its true form) means too much city for businesses and civic leaders not to rally around it, especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and consequential economic collapse.
"We would welcome any political convention in 2024," said Peggy Williams-Smith, president and CEO of VISIT Milwaukee.
She echoed Barnes' concerns over the bidding process, and how changes in the political landscape influences the party's host city's selection.
"There's so much work that went in to bidding--you form a local organizing committee, you have to have financial commitments," said Williams-Smith. "I am willing to work with anyone who wants to make a pitch for this, but the pitch wouldn't start until late 2022 because we don't even know who would be running in 2024."
In the meantime, she is focusing on the positive impacts of Milwaukee being named host city of the DNC. Since it won its bid, Williams-Smith said, convention and event bookings in Milwaukee have increased. Before COVID-19, VISIT Milwaukee booked nearly 30,000 more hotel rooms for January through May this year than it did last year.
With the convention's new format, she said she's going to miss showing Milwaukee off to visitors that would have come here for the first time because of the the convention. But she remains optimistic that the eyes of the world will still be on Milwaukee this summer.
"We were really looking forward to being able to welcome 50,000 guests and be able to show them what Milwaukee has to offer in person, now we'll just have to do it virtually," she said.
