Wisconsin Republicans have long used Milwaukee as a political punching bag, with former President Donald Trump bashing the heavily Democratic city for crime and its electoral process — most recently, he said.terrible.”
But starting Monday, Milwaukee will be home to the party’s biggest bash in years.
Despite the attacks, Republicans are flocking to the largest city in the Midwest battleground for the four-day national GOP convention, where the party will formally nominate Trump and seek to rally support less than four months before the presidential election.
Wisconsin Republicans played down Trump’s latest comments about Milwaukee in interviews and statements to NBC News, while state Democrats repeatedly condemned the former president’s criticism of his beloved lakeside cities.
Trump’s remarks emerged as a flashpoint in the critical Senate race between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and her Republican challenger, businessman Eric Hovde.
“Milwaukee produces the world’s greatest beer, brats and motorcycles. It’s home to our most vibrant communities, our hardest-working, and it’s part of what makes Wisconsin the best state in the nation,” Baldwin said in a statement to NBC News.
“Donald Trump couldn’t be more wrong about Milwaukee, and that shows how out of touch he is. I urge him to take some time next week to learn a thing or two about his convention venue and see how great it is.”
For his part, Hovde told NBC News, “I love the city of Milwaukee, and it’s sad to see how Democrats have mismanaged it for generations — including Sen. Baldwin and President Biden.”
“Milwaukees deserve better, and that’s why I’m running a citywide campaign to show people there’s a different way forward,” Hovde said.
Before Trump vilified Milwaukee as a “terrible” city during a meeting with House Republicans in Washington last month, the former president had long criticized it as a hotbed of crime and falsely claimed the 2020 election process was tainted by widespread fraud.
Trump denied the news he claimed that Milwaukee was a “terrible” city, specifically talking about crime and the recent election.
“We are very concerned about crime. I love Milwaukee. I have great friends in Milwaukee. But as you know, the number of crimes is terrible,” Trump said This was reported by Fox News. “I also meant the elections, the ballots, how it went. It was bad in Milwaukee. Very, very bad.”
Trump falsely claimed to have won Wisconsin in the 2020 election and repeatedly criticized the vote in Milwaukee, as well as election officials in the city.
Wisconsin Democrats have made it clear in recent days that they have not forgotten Trump’s criticism of Milwaukee.
“What he said about Milwaukee being a terrible city is just one of many fabrications by the former president,” Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said in an interview.
“When people land here, they will see that this is a big city,” he said. “It’s also home to thousands of Republican voters who have called Milwaukee home for a while, raising their children and grandchildren who are important members of our community. He called their houses terrible. I think it was a little weird for him and the long string of lies was something else.
The partisan jockey emphasizes the important role Wisconsin will once again play in the outcome of the 2024 election. Four of the last six presidential elections less than 1 percent were decided in the state.
Despite the attention the convention will generate, there is little evidence the site a party chooses to host its event will give it a long-term political boost.
“The people of Milwaukee were not surprised to hear this from Donald Trump,” said state Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, who represents Racine, south of Milwaukee, adding, “Republicans have been insulting and attacking the city. Milwaukee for years.”
“Milwaukee voters and Wisconsin voters will not forget that Donald Trump has repeatedly disrespected them, disrespected our state, and shown no commitment to working to improve our lives on behalf of the people of Wisconsin.”
Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman, whose district includes much of downtown, called Trump’s comments “ridiculous.”
“Like any big city in this country, there are assets, liabilities, problems, strengths, and we have them. So for him to focus on that, to just call something horrible, is an ad hominem attack on America’s urban state in every major city in the country,” he said. “That’s just nonsense.” (As a member of Milwaukee’s Common Council, Bauman was elected as a nonpartisan.)
Bauman, whose district is the Fiserv Forum, the arena that will host the convention proceedings, said the comments reflect Trump’s “tension between suburbanites and out-of-state Wisconsin,” where Republicans are doing better in the polls, and “the two big cities in Wisconsin,” Milwaukee and Madison.
Some prominent Wisconsin Republicans have nodded to or amplified the tension.
Rep. R-Wis., who represents a solid GOP district north of Milwaukee. Glenn Grothman is a constant critic of the city. Most recently, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Milwaukee’s problem is they continue to vote for leftist Democrats,” he added, adding, “Milwaukee is messed up.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., tried to explain Trump’s words last month saying the point “What he was trying to do is he’s concerned about crime in Milwaukee, and we should all be concerned.”
Meanwhile, former Gov. Scott Walker This was reported by the Journal Sentinel The Republicans’ relationship with the state’s largest city is “complicated” because they “felt the consequences” of the funding allocated to the city “it was not effective.”
But Republicans have dismissed claims that Trump is stoking divisions in the swing state. They argued that Trump had the final say on nearly every element of the convention, even though the GOP chose Milwaukee as the host city long before he emerged as the party’s presumptive nominee.
Brian Schimming, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said: “If Donald Trump didn’t want it here, we wouldn’t be holding the convention here.” “We can hold this convention in 100 cities, and we’re holding it in Milwaukee. He’s cool with it.”
“There are a lot of people in Milwaukee who share Donald Trump’s concern about crime in Milwaukee,” he said.
The quadrennial convention will bring tens of thousands of delegates, party and campaign officials and members of the media to the greater Milwaukee area — and with them, millions of dollars in revenue for local restaurants, hotels and businesses — Schimming said, a fact of residents and voters. will soon forget.
“In the end, the logic of it is that Wisconsin is an important place to be,” Schimming said. “In Wisconsin, if you’re going to hold a convention, Milwaukee is a very important place to be.”