Passing through Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1791, George Washington is said to have been unimpressed. He described the city in his diary as “a very trifling place.”
And in the years since, Charlotte has labored mightily to disprove that slur and shed its image as a second-tier city. It has lured pro sports teams, built glimmering bank towers, and runs one of the country’s largest airports. And the city that often has an inferiority complex has found validation in its growth, from new houses in the suburbs to new condos and high-rise office buildings downtown.
Now, the largest city in the Carolinas earned another distinction in bagging the 2020 Republican National Convention. Republican National Committee members meeting in Austin, Texas, voted Friday to award the convention to Charlotte.
I’m thrilled that Charlotte will be the official host city for the 2020 Republican National Convention! It’s the perfect place for our party to re-nominate President @realDonaldTrump and @VP Mike Pence to continue fighting for the American people! https://t.co/fuBj189wch
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) July 20, 2018
Charlotte was one of just two cities submitting a bid. The other was Las Vegas. Sin City might have been a more appropriate choice for Republicans in the Trump era, but Charlotte’s bid was more enthusiastic, though it still prompted objections. If you’re among the thousands expected to attend the 2020 convention, don’t be dismayed. Charlotte is a perfectly adequate host city, as Democrats found in 2012. I’ve lived here for the last 20 years. Here’s what you need to know:
Size: Charlotte is the country’s 17th-largest city, with nearly 900,000 residents. The metro area is 2.6 million, ranked No. 21 nationally. People who have never been here sometimes confuse it with Charlottesville, which is in Virginia, and Charleston, which is in South Carolina. It is named for Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III.
Food: Some people figure Charlotte must be a barbecue town. They’re wrong. The best barbecue comes from small North Carolina towns such as Lexington and Shelby. There’s barbecue here if you want it, but it tends to be the fancy-pants variety, not the preferable hole-in-the-wall kind, with smoke bellowing from out back.
Still, Charlotte has upped its food game big time since a culinary university, Johnson & Wales, opened a campus here about 15 years ago. There are a ton of options downtown. Republicans who favor dark steakhouses won’t be disappointed: Downtown (also known as “uptown”) has Morton’s, Capital Grille, Ruth’s Chris, BLT Steak, and Fleming’s, plus Brazilian steakhouses Chima and Brazz.
Lodging:All the hotels downtown are likely to fill quickly, as soon as dates are set. The nicest downtown include the Ritz-Carlton, Westin, and Omni. One of the nicest in town is about 20 minutes south, the Ballantyne:NFL teams regularly stay there when playing the Panthers. There will be plenty of Airbnb options, too, as enterprising residents leave town. Spots in close-in neighborhoods such as Myers Park and Dilworth will be the most convenient, as well as condos in nearby South End.
Vibe: Downtown Charlotte has come a long way. In 1994, when Charlotte hosted the NCAA basketball championships in the suburbs, there was so little to do downtown at night that the city had to construct a fake entertainment district. The center of the action in 2020 will likely be the Epicentre, a downtown collection of bars and restaurants within walking distance to the convention site, the Spectrum Center. The area is usually flooded with Ubers on weekend nights.
In addition, there are plenty of nearby craft breweries, where millennials can regularly be seen taking their dogs and meeting friends, often zipping there on electric scooters (OK, maybe not with the dogs). The Charlotte Observer says there are 276 bars and restaurants in downtown and theadjacent South End, an increase of more than 50 percent compared with when Democrats came in 2012.
The Carolinas are also known for their golf. The hot ticket will be at the Quail Hollow Club in south Charlotte, which hosts the yearly Wells Fargo Championship and last year’s PGA Championship. Those looking to curry favor can attempt to pull some strings to get on the Trump National Golf Club in Mooresville, about 45 minutes north of Charlotte.
Politics: There’s no obvious North Carolina GOP leader, and Democrats have dominated Charlotte politics for the last 20 years. The city’s mayor is a Democrat. So is Gov. Roy Cooper, who is most famous nationally for exonerating falsely accused Duke lacrosse players in 2007 when he was the state’s attorney general. Both U.S. senators, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, are Republicans. It’s unclear if Charlotte will have a Republican congressman, as Rep. Robert Pittinger lost in his primary in May. Trump budget chief Mick Mulvaney grew up in Charlotte and represented nearby Rock Hill, S.C., in Congress for six years.
In 2016, Trump won North Carolina, 50 percent to 46 percent. Hillary Clinton carried Mecklenburg County with 62 percent of the vote, though suburban counties tend to be Republican strongholds.
In recent presidential election cycles, North Carolina has been considered to be competitive, although the only Democrat to win North Carolina since Jimmy Carter in 1976 was Barack Obama in 2008. The state backed Mitt Romney in 2012, the year Democrats held their convention in Charlotte, showing that convention sites often have little to do with a state’s presidential outcome.
