What to watch for at Milwaukee's Republican National Convention this week (2024)

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at Pennsylvania rally on Saturday stunned delegates arriving at this week’s Republican National Convention.

An estimated 50,000 delegates, officials, guests and members of the media are descending on Milwaukee as Wisconsin’s largest city hosts the Republican National Convention.

The event will include all the pomp and circ*mstance that comes with national conventions, including grand stage speeches, raucous chanting and cheering from campaign button-bedecked party insiders, and wall-to-wall media coverage.

Trump is already the presumptive nominee, but the party will formally select him as its presidential candidate during the four-day convention. Delegates from across the country also will vote on the party’s platform heading into the November election.

The events of Trump’s rally on Saturday, where the former president was injured and rushed off stage after the assassination attempt, turned the national conversation away from President Joe Biden’s fitness to continue as the Democratic nominee and put the spotlight squarely on Trump.

Here are a few things to expect when the event officially kicks off on Monday.

Who will be Trump’s running mate?

While Trump became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee months ago, the biggest outstanding question is: Whom will he select as his running mate?

Trump has said he plans to announce a vice president candidate in the days before — or even during — the four-day convention in Milwaukee.

Some of Trump’s top contenders heading into the convention include North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum; Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance; Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio; South Carolina U.S. Sen. Tim Scott; and New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.

Trump in 2020 selected then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate just days before that year’s convention in Cleveland. Trump later turned on Pence after the vice president rebuffed his boss’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Pence, who had launched his own run for president before dropping out last year, has said he will not endorse Trump in the 2024 election.

Party still finding its way on abortion

Expect fights over the GOP platform, which Republican National Committee party officials announced last week after a closed meeting. Among the biggest surprises: The platform softens the GOP’s stance on abortion, an issue that conservatives have struggled to find a winning strategy on after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision striking down Roe v. Wade two years ago.

The party’s platform states Republicans will oppose “late term abortion, while supporting mothers and policies that advance prenatal care, access to birth control, and IVF (fertility treatments).”

The platform steers away from strict abortion language and is the first time in 40 years that national Republicans have not explicitly called for a national abortion ban.

Trump, who has taken credit for appointing U.S. Supreme Court justices who ultimately overturned Roe, has sought to avoid strict abortion language heading into November. The former president most recently has said decisions on reproductive health should be left to the states.

Some anti-abortion Republicans have criticized the decision, with Pence calling the platform “a profound disappointment to the millions of pro-life Republicans that have always looked to the Republican Party to stand for life,” in a post on X.

Democrats expect abortion rights to play a critical role in the election, particularly among more-moderate voters and suburban women, a voting bloc Trump has struggled to secure. Reproductive health advocates say that’s particularly true in Wisconsin, which is once again expected to be one of just a handful of states poised to play a deciding role in who takes the White House.

Election administration, immigration

The committee also wants to “secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship.”

Trump repeatedly has called for voting to take place on one day only using paper ballots while continuing to promote the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against him and the use of absentee ballots led to widespread fraud.

State and national GOP officials, meanwhile, have tried to counter Trump’s comments as they look to boost absentee voting and election confidence heading into the November election.

Delegates will formally vote on the party’s platform at the convention.

Party platform

After declining to introduce a new party platform in 2020, the Republican Party approved a new platform that largely aligns with Trump’s stance on issues ranging from elections and abortion to the border and immigration.

The list of priorities includes barring cuts to Social Security and Medicare, lifting restrictions on American energy production and dramatically reducing immigration, including plans to begin “the largest deportation program in American history.”

The platform also calls for the creation of “an iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country,” similar to defense capabilities held by Israel, as well as support for universal school choice in every state, protections for students to practice Christianity in public schools while pledging to cut federal funding for schools that provide anti-racism curriculum.

Protests

While much of the week’s events will take place within the convention perimeter surrounding Fiserv Forum, there looks to be no shortage of action outside the convention zone — where a group of local and national organizations plan to protest.

While liberal groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Coalition to March on the RNC 2024 sought to have the city design a protest parade route within sight of Fiserv Forum, a federal judge ruled Monday those protesting cannot march through the convention’s security zone.

Officials with ACLU of Wisconsin have said pushing protesters further from the convention site infringes on their freedom of speech.

U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig said in his order denying protesters’ request for closer access to the convention site the “vast majority of the resulting security plan is a reasonable and valid time, place, and manner regulation on speech.”

The existing parade route, which includes a stage for speakers, will be located about five blocks from the arena.

Biden’s age, debate performance

Those attending or tuning in to the RNC certainly can expect to hear criticisms lobbed at President Joe Biden, though it’s likely to take on a new level of fervor after the incumbent’s widely panned debate performance last month.

Biden’s uneven performance, particularly early in the debate, sparked a fresh round of calls by some within his party to consider a different candidate to lead the charge against Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House. Wisconsin Democrats, meanwhile, have largely shrugged off Biden’s debate performance and instead say they remain focused on defeating Trump in November.

Biden, 81, has vowed to stay in the race, telling supporters gathered at Sherman Middle School in Madison earlier this month that he is the Democratic Party’s nominee and is not going to let anyone “push me out of the race.”

Even so, Republicans have latched on to Biden’s debate performance as proof that he is unfit to serve a second term in the White House.

Expect to hear more of that, especially from Trump and his top surrogates, at the RNC.

2020 DNC compared with 2024 RNC

One topic that might not get a lot of discussion in Milwaukee, but will undoubtedly be on the minds of some liberals, is that the 2024 RNC comes just four years after the Democratic National Convention, which was technically held in Milwaukee despite being shifted to an almost entirely online affair due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden ultimately accepted the nomination in Delaware, but Milwaukee officials used its preparations for that convention to argue to Republicans that it had a “turnkey” operation ready to host for real in 2024.

Don’t be surprised if at least a few Republicans take an opportunity to remind Wisconsin liberals of that when the party holds their big event in Milwaukee.

Milwaukee ‘horrible’ city

One topic that is likely to come up at the four-day convention is the event’s host city of Milwaukee — the state’s largest municipality and a frequent punching bag for state and national Republicans.

Trump himself called Milwaukee “a horrible city” in a meeting with House Republicans last month, according to Washington political news site Punchbowl News.

Trump officials said the comment was taken out of context, while members of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation offered differing views on whether the former president made the remark, or what specifically he was referring to with the comment.

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Prairie du Chien, said Trump’s comment was in reference to crime rates in Milwaukee, which has seen violent crime increase over the past two decades, though several crimes, including homicide, rape, aggravated assault and burglary saw drops last year.

Other lawmakers, including U.S. Reps. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, and Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, said Trump’s comments were about “election integrity.”

Trump lost the 2020 presidential vote in Wisconsin to Biden but continues to make baseless claims that he actually won the state. In attempting to overturn the results, he and his lawyers argued in lawsuits that more than 200,000 votes should not have been counted, more than 170,000 of which were from Milwaukee and Dane counties. The Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the claim, upholding Biden’s win.

Regardless of Trump’s intentions, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the former president is “just plain wrong” about his city and argued insulting your convention host is not a winning strategy.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.