Denver on Wednesday will play host to a group from the Republican National Committee on the first of six visits to potential hosts for the party’s national convention in 2016.
A final decision won’t come until late summer or fall, but the cutthroat competition begins with this month’s visits by RNC staffers and advisers.
Follow-up visits by a full RNC delegation are planned later this spring to a short list of finalists, to be chosen in mid-May.
Denver, which won praise for a successful 2008 Democratic National Convention, is vying for the attention, prestige and dollars that would come with hosting 50,000 visitors and VIPs during the GOP’s four-day presidential-nominating convention.
Expect the RNC’s team to visit the Pepsi Center, other potential event venues and hotels. Its members also will seek details on financing plans from the Denver 2016 bid committee.
Some observers have given Dallas or Las Vegas an edge, but an RNC official disputes that notion.
“We’ve entered the next phase of the site-selection process with all cities on an even playing field — there are no favorites, there are no underdogs,” Site Selection Committee chairwoman Enid Mickelsen said in a statement. “The technical visits will help aid the committee in their decision-making process.”
After Denver, the RNC staffers head to Las Vegas on Thursday. Similar swings are planned April 24-25 to Dallas and Kansas City, Mo., and April 29-30 to Cincinnati and Cleveland.
“(These initial visits are) an added step because the quality of the bids was so good that we didn’t want to cut down the finalists too much,” RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney said.
