WASHINGTON D.C. (CelebrityAccess) — U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Republicans have abandoned plans to hold an in-person Republican national convention in Jacksonville, Florida next month.
Trump said Republicans still planned to meet in Charlotte on the first day of the four-day convention in order to handle official business.
The move marks a change in tone for Trump, who in early June, abruptly announced that the convention was moving to Jacksonville from its original planned location in Charlotte, after North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said that convention plans would be scaled back due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The abrupt move sent GOP officials scrambling to locate a new host city for the convention, finally settling on Jacksonville. However, a spike in coronavirus cases in many states, including Florida, have increasingly made the prospects of a traditional, large-scale, indoor convention unfeasable.
CNN reported that as recently as last week, planners had been planning for crowds of 2,500 delegates on the first three nights of the Jacksonville event with the audience swelling to 7,000 for the final night when the President would likely deliver an in-person acceptance speech.
A convention official who asked not to be named, described the situation after the surprise cancellation of the Jacksonville event to CNN as a “multi-million dollar debacle.”
