Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper may soon find out what it’s like to become “resistance” heroes among President Trump’s detractors and targets of his wrath.
The pair of Democratic officials will have considerable say about whether to cancel the Republican National Convention, set for Charlotte on Aug. 24-27, due to social distancing concerns amid the coronavirus pandemic. Doing so would be an unprecedented move, but potentially in-line with health guidelines they’ve been pushing at the municipal and statewide level.
The GOP, including Trump, publicly exude confidence that the convention, expected to attract 50,000 party delegates, guests, and members of the media from around the country, will proceed as scheduled. But like most aspects of American life upended by the coronavirus pandemic, the event is shrouded in uncertainty.
Democrats announced last week they were postponing their convention in Milwaukee by one month to mid-August, one week before the Republican gathering. Yet party heavyweights hinted in their statements unveiling the move that changes to the date and format could be made again depending on public health advice.
Then this week, Trump mocked presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee Joe Biden for suggesting his party might hold a digital convention if it were still advised to avoid large crowds. Trump’s comments echoed his insistence that the GOP had “no contingency plan” for their iteration.
“We’re having the convention at the end of August, and we think by the end of August, we’re going to be in great shape. It’s going to be in North Carolina, Charlotte, and I think we’re going to have a great convention,” the president said during a White House press briefing over the weekend.
A week earlier, he told Fox News’s Sean Hannity there was “no way” he would cancel the event.
However, without widespread testing or a vaccine, the Republican convention’s status rests on local, state, and federal guidance.
Officials for North Carolina and Mecklenburg County, covering Charlotte, have both declared states of emergency and issued stay-at-home orders. Those orders could be extended based on the spread of the novel respiratory illness in a state with 3,221 confirmed COVID-19 virus cases and 46 deaths as of Tuesday afternoon.
Lyles foreshadowed concerns late last week during a Twitter town hall, telling constituents the city had a contractual obligation to host the convention and were “proceeding in that direction.”
“But we’ll see,” the mayor added.
“We will operate under the rules of that CDC and all of the other federal and state agencies provide at that time,” she said. “I don’t know the answer to that now. I don’t know whether or not we will have the ability to do this if the pandemic continues. But given that, I’m hopeful, just for all of us, that we will be out of this particularly difficult time by the summer or the fall.”
Charlotte’s NPR-affiliate WFAE reported the city could breach its iron-clad contract, designed to prevent any political snafus, if the federal government didn’t give it an anticipated $50 million security grant.
Cooper could also hinder the convention by invoking his emergency powers, as could Mecklenburg Health Director Gibbie Harris. There’s some precedent from this year, as Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, last month pushed back his state’s Democratic presidential primary just as the coronavirus reached a national crisis stage.
“At some point, we could declare a public health emergency, and that does give us some flexibility in making those kinds of decisions,” Harris told WFAE. “Obviously, it would depend on the epidemiology of what’s happened in this community at the time.”
Mac McCorkle, a former Democratic strategist and director of Duke University’s Polis Center, believed the convention was at risk of falling victim to any “across the board” prohibitions on groups of people.
“If there is a public health ban in Charlotte imposed by the mayor and or by the governor, as long as it’s not directed at the Republican convention but is directed at large gatherings in general, it’s bulletproof, in my view,” McCorkle told the Washington Examiner, adding they could potentially move it to a state without any restrictions if need be.
For Republican strategist Paul Shumaker, “All will know a lot more in the next few weeks.”
“For now, Democratic challengers are gasping for air to try and find ways to take political shots at Republican incumbents,” Shumaker said.
Although the Republican National Convention will next week convene a tele-town hall instead of an in-person media walk-through, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the party was moving forward “full steam ahead.”
“We were on the ground in Charlotte. We are ready to go, and we look forward to renominating our president and having a full seated convention in August,” she told Fox Business.
In an open letter, state GOP Chairman Michael Whatley said his organization was “firmly committed” to the event, while the hosting committee’s spokeswoman Jill Kay told the Charlotte Observer they were on track to raise its goal of $65 million and recruit the necessary volunteers.
“We have the utmost confidence in our local, state, and federal partners as we look forward to August and getting this international crisis behind us,” Kay said.
