President Donald Trump wants the Republican National Convention to move to Jacksonville, but new polling indicates the feeling may not be mutual. Trump’s refusal to give up his dream of packing thousands of Republicans into an arena led the party to move its main festivities from Charlotte, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida, a city with fewer coronavirus-imposed restrictions. The move came after Governor Roy Cooper couldn’t guarantee that North Carolina would host the event just as it would have operated pre-pandemic, given the safety risks that come with accommodating around 20,000 people.
Yet despite Trump acting like this whole public health crisis is over, and yet again Tuesday praising his handling of it, Florida Politics reported a new RABA Research poll showing a majority of the voters in Duval—the county that makes up most of Jacksonville—also fear the consequences of hosting the convention in the midst of a pandemic. The poll, commissioned by Republican Voters Against Trump, found only 39% of people who “support the Convention coming to Jacksonville” while 49% said they did not. And the percentage of those opposing the convention grew to 52% once presented with, the report notes, with pros (filling hotels and boosting the economy) and cons (costing the city million, risking new COVID-19 infections). Only 39% supported Jacksonville hosting the RNC in light of this additional context.
Given that the poll was conducted before Trump’s disastrous return to the campaign trail, the low turnout at Trump’s Tulsa, Oklahoma rally on Saturday likely had as much to do with people afraid of contracting a deadly disease as TikTok teens. Trump staffers themselves have tested positive for COVID-19, including six members of the campaign’s advance team before the Tulsa event. Two other campaign staffers—both of whom attended the rally while wearing masks—have since tested positive, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Michael C. Bender.
The findings come as cases surge in the state, with Florida witnessing its largest daily increase in new infections this past weekend, Politico reported. The Florida Department of Health confirmed 4,671 cases on Saturday—including in Jacksonville, Florida Politics notes, where Duval County “added a record 264 cases.” The number of new cases reported in Florida on Sunday dropped to 2,799, but Politico notes that’s “still more than double the number of new cases being reported daily in early April.” And while Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor and Trump ally, had previously echoed the White House’s insistence on increased cases being the result of increased testing—misinformation Trump continued to disseminate on Twitter this morning—DeSantis finally conceded otherwise over the weekend.
“We’re nowhere near yet sort of a surge that would truly challenge our hospital capacity,” Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber told CNN in a recent interview. “But we can’t wait until we get to those points to start being concerned and acting accordingly”
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