The Democratic Party has chosen Milwaukee as the city to host the party’s nominating convention in July 2020, according to multiple reports.
Officials are expected to announce the pick Monday afternoon at a news conference in Milwaukee, Democratic National Committee spokesman Brandan Gassaway told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Milwaukee beat out Houston and Miami to host the convention from July 13-16, 2020, The Washington Post reported. The recently opened Fiserv Forum, the 17,500-seat arena for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, will serve as the main site for the convention, according to the Post.
The decision marks the first planned Midwestern Democratic convention since 1996, when Democrats held their convention in Chicago, the Journal Sentinel reported. It comes after weeks of decision making by Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, according to the newspaper.
"The Democratic Party is the party of working people, and Milwaukee is a city of working people," Perez said in a statement obtained by The Hill. "We saw in this last election what we can accomplish when we come together, invest, and fight for working people, and that was proven right here in Wisconsin."
The Journal Sentinel noted that during the 2016 general election, then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton skipped campaigning in Wisconsin. President Donald Trump won the state with 47 percent of the vote.
“A lot people feel that we lost (in 2016) because this area had been ignored — whether it’s from a political standpoint or whether it’s from a governing standpoint,” Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, one of the people to woo Democrats ahead of Monday’s expected announcement, told The Associated Press.
He said the decision to hold the convention in the city shows, “we are ready to reinvest in the Midwest, that the Midwest matters again.”
The Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held Aug. 24-27, 2020, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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