GOP convention choice Milwaukee was scene of assassination try on 1912 prez hopeful
MILWAUKEE — The Republican National Convention will descend this week on Wisconsin’s largest city — whose colorful history includes an assassination attempt on presidential hopeful Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.
At the time, the former president was running a doomed re-election campaign under a third party after splitting off from the GOP.
The attempted assassination occurred 112 years before current GOP presidential hopeful and former Commander in Chief Donald Trump was nearly killed by a shooter at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Trump, 78, headed to Milwaukee on Sunday for his expected coronation as the party’s presidential nominee.
Roosevelt was shot by a would-be assassin from New York City outside the Gilpatrick Hotel, now the site of the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee, moments before a campaign speech.
His 50-page speech manuscript in his pocket saved his life by stopping the bullet from killing him.
He went on to give an 84-minute speech without being treated for the wound.
After Trump’s near-assassination, he announced he would not be changing his plans or delaying his trip to the Badger State for the convention.
Security was already being increased around the convention site in the hours after the Pennsylvania shooting, but a former FBI agent and 25-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department told The Post on Sunday that most of the plans would stay intact.
“They’re certainly going to be more alert. They are going to extend their perimeters, but they shouldn’t change their plan,’’ the source said.
Oct 14, 1912, shortly before a gunman shot and wounded him. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Files
“They are going to encourage [Trump] to limit his public appearances, which is typical protocol for dignitary protection. Whether the protectee takes that advice is another matter.”
The swing state’s coveted 10 electoral votes no doubt contributed to its appeal for the RNC this year.
“I love Milwaukee!” Trump told a cheering crowd in Racine, Wisc., last month. “I was the one who picked Milwaukee.”
But he had already gotten into trouble for supposedly calling it a “horrible city’’ earlier behind closed doors with GOP leaders, although he denied the claim.
Trump’s history with Wisconsin and Milwaukee is complicated.
He flipped the state red by less than 1 percentage point in 2016 after it spent the previous seven presidential elections in the Democrats’ column.
“Four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin were decided by less than 1 percentage point,’’ Charles Franklin, director of Wisconsin’s Marquette Law School Poll, told The Post.
“Trump won in 2016 by 0.8 points, and Biden won in 2020 by 0.6 points, in both cases by less than 25,000 votes.
“In Marquette Law School polls since November, we have had Trump up once, Biden up once and two ties. So it certainly is in line with past very close elections,’’ Franklin said.
Former Wisconsin congressman, House speaker and veep candidate Paul Ryan said last year he would not attend the RNC in his home state if Trump was the nominee.
More recently, he said he thinks it is “quite possible” Trump will challenge the election again if he loses, as he did in Wisconsin in 2020.
Emotions are running high in the city as the convention is about to begin, with the latest episode involving workers who are setting up for the convention covering a street sign called “Herb Kohl Way” with a sign saying “Donald J. Trump Way.”
Kohl was a longtime Wisconsin senator and the owner of the city’s beloved NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks.
The sign was quickly removed, but the damage was done as state Democrats and Republicans fought on Twitter over the incident.
The city’s questionable handling of the 140 registered protesters has also come under fire, as the RNC, the Secret Service and the city fought over security perimeters and protest parade routes for the convention.
Adding to the anxiety is the fact that the state’s concealed and open carry laws will allow guns within the security perimeter, though not inside the federal perimeter around the convention center.
Trump seeks to gain a historic percentage of the black vote, which has traditionally gone for Democrats.
The city has the largest percentage of the black population in the state, at 29% and elected its first black mayor only two years ago.
“As a native Wisconsinite, I am beyond excited not only for the world to come to Milwaukee but for Milwaukee to be brought to the world during the 2024 Republican National Convention,” Rachel Reisner, an RNC rep, told The Post. “This historic television production will highlight our party’s America First agenda; put Milwaukee on the map; and undoubtedly create a significant, positive, and lasting economic impact on my hometown.’’
Four years ago, Milwaukee was getting ready to welcome the Democratic National Convention, a move state Republicans tied to the socialist history of the state, with Bernie Sanders and AOC making headlines for the party.
Then the DNC pulled out over COVID concerns, leaving the city in a lurch but with an infrastructure to host an event the size of a national party convention.
Claire Koenig at Visit Milwaukee said that the city has been working together to prepare for the Republican convention since it received the proposal request in September 2021.
“Milwaukee resonated with the RNC as an out-of-the-box destination from an event-planning perspective,” Koenig told The Post.
Fiserv Forum, where the Milwaukee Bucks play and the RNC will be held from Monday to Thursday, is in what’s known to locals as the “Deer District,” a 30-acre destination hub that was built for events like the RNC.
“Economically, it’s a city for everybody,” said former Republican state Assemblyman Dale Kooyenga.
