President Donald Trump narrowly won Wisconsin in the 2016 election, but Democrats are pulling out all the stops as they try to win the state in the 2020 race to unseat the incumbent president.
A big part of that push came last year when the Democratic National Committee announced that it would hold its 2020 convention in Milwaukee, and party officials are detailing their preparations for the big event.
The convention will be held July 13-16 at the Fiserv Forum, and officials were on hand Tuesday to discuss not only the upcoming gathering of the party, but also for their preparations to turn Wisconsin blue in 2020.
“The electoral map is getting smaller and smaller and the number of routes that any of us use to try to forge a path to victory go through Wisconsin,” Democratic Convention CEO John Solomonese said.
One of the big challenges facing Democrats in 2020 is attracting younger voters, something that Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers knows all too well.
“We need to get more turnout among young people. Every four years we say that’s going to happen, but it hasn’t happened yet,” he said.
With a crowded field of Democrats vying for the party’s nomination, there is a possibility that no candidate will command a majority of the votes, meaning that the Wisconsin convention would decide the nominee.
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Despite that, Solomonese feels confident that voters will make the determination ahead of the July convention.
“I feel confident that we will have a clear presented nominee well in advance of the convention,” he said.
Although Milwaukee will be hosting the convention, the Chicago area will play a key role as well, with more than one-third of convention attendees expected to stay in hotels in the city’s northern suburbs.
“About a third of our delegates will fly into O’Hare and spend time in Illinois, and we’ll be moving them back and forth every day,” Solomonese said.
