GOP doles out petty punishment to Illinois for voting Democratic: report

Republicans are planning petty punishment against Illinois for voting Democratic and dangling economic benefits to Wisconsin ahead of next year's presidential election.

The Republican Party will hold its 2024 convention next July in Milwaukee, and they're encouraging state delegations to use that city's airport and stay in its hotels instead of nearby Chicago, which is larger and more well-equipped to welcome a large-scale political event, reported Politico.

“Illinois is not a state that is politically in our corner, right?" said Elise Dickens, CEO of the Republican National Convention. "So being that Wisconsin is a key swing state, the decision to be here in its entirety was intentional."

Milwaukee's mayor, Cavalier Johnson, is a Democrat, and Dickens credited Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel with crossing political lines to coordinate the event, which is expected to draw about 2,429 delegates and 2,262 alternates and another 45,000 members of the media, guests, entourages and volunteers.

Delegations will get their hotel assignments in the spring, so it's possible they might all be able to stay in the greater Milwaukee area, although some might be stuck taking a train from Kenosha, which is 40 miles south, or a bus from Madison, which is 80 miles west.

“We know Milwaukee is a blue community, and we wanted to show up," Dickens said. "There’s a lot of opportunity here and we’ve invested in this state for a very long time."

Democrats will hold their own convention a month later in Chicago, and organizers cited hotel locations as a leading factor in that decision, although they had chosen Milwaukee as the site of their 2020 convention, which was held virtually due to the pandemic and left lingering resentment among business owners who felt "burned" by the cancellation.

“There’s a rich history of a rivalry between Wisconsin and Illinois,” Dickens said. “So some local Milwaukeeans didn’t take kindly to the DNC wanting to cross over the borders.”