After months of public feuding, multiple venue changes in different states, and increasing panic within his administration about the sheer logistics of planning a much-hyped national convention, President Trump kicked off Thursday’s press conference with the announcement that the in-person component of the 2020 Republican National Convention is effectively canceled.
“To have a big convention, it’s not the right time,” Trump said, citing a spike in coronavirus cases in Florida. “I told my team it’s time to cancel the Jacksonville component.”
Like competitor Joe Biden plans, Trump will move the usual convention speeches online, with only a short in-person portion relegated to Charlotte, North Carolina, to deal with convention business.
Trump could have dictated that the convention be held mostly online from the start for little risk with little reward. He could have bet high on an in-person convention, went full steam ahead, and put on the sort of spectacle his campaign sorely needs. Instead, he somehow married the worst of both worlds, putting the GOP’s logistical drama on full display for months only to wind up scrapping the whole thing.
On the one hand, this could be the welcome evidence that Trump is finally taking the pandemic seriously. But it’s yet another illustration of what a practical disaster his campaign is less than four months out from the election as he languishes well behind the former vice president.
Consider, the original RNC was scheduled for Charlotte, but as coronavirus caseloads escalated, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said that it would need to be somewhat scaled down. After Cooper and the RNC came to an impasse, Trump turned the standoff into an unforced error of a news cycle, rage tweeting about the state leadership and publicly directing the RNC to find a new location not three months before the scheduled date.
When the RNC finally settled in Jacksonville, it all but stuck the nail in the coffin of the hopes of the convention actually materializing. If it had chosen somewhere slightly further north, it would have been realistic to hold a huge but socially distanced convention outside, ideally at a large football or soccer arena.
Jacksonville averages in the 90s in August, with humidity averaging around 80%. The city was perhaps one of the worst places in the continental United States to host a convention with any component outside, dooming the RNC to cancellation.
Even so, the RNC doubled down until the very end.
“We are thrilled to celebrate this momentous occasion in the great city of Jacksonville,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel boasted shortly after the June announcement that the convention would move to Jacksonville. “Not only does Florida hold a special place in President Trump’s heart as his home state, but it is crucial in the path to victory in 2020. We look forward to bringing this great celebration and economic boon to the Sunshine State in just a few short months.”
Even as coronavirus cases spiked, threatening the president’s reelection, McDaniel and Trump refused to commit to a mask-wearing mandate while indoors. As recently as last week, McDaniel was still excoriating Cooper for “playing politics” as she disclosed new developments in internal planning.
Again, this convention was supposed to be held just one month from now.
All of which is to say that at every point, terrible decisions were made. This one wasn’t a good one, politically, but between the sheer incompetence of the RNC and the White House, it was inevitable.
