Outside the security zone where the convention was taking place, residents grumbled, ignored or shrugged. The event served to mobilize the GOP and give Trump momentum.

Milwaukee’s Democratic Mayor Cavalier Johnson immediately called the convention a success, even though he will now focus on ensuring Trump loses in November.

“We’ve shown that our city can host a big, huge event,” Mayor Johnson said. “That’s important for the tens of thousands of attendees and it’s important for the future of our hospitality industry here in Milwaukee.”

But it will take months to gauge the economic impact on Milwaukee, and complaints are mounting, including about blocked streets and storefronts, disappointing restaurant reservations and the deployment of out-of-town officers to police the city.

Residents also won’t soon forget Trump describing Milwaukee as “terrible” during a private meeting with congressional Republicans last month, though his defenders later suggested he was referring to crime or election concerns.

“I think there are a lot of people who are very upset about the ‘horrible’ stigma that Trump has given to the city,” said Jill McCurdy, a retired Democratic woman, as she walked through Red Arrow Park, where hundreds of people had protested days earlier. “Of course, us people who live here, especially those who have lived here our whole lives, don’t see it that way.”

McCurdy, 68, hopes Republican visitors will leave with a positive impression of the city, which is located on Lake Michigan about an hour’s drive north of Chicago, where Democrats are holding their convention in August.

But after talking to friends who own restaurants and were “quite disappointed” with the crowds during the convention, she said she wasn’t convinced the city would benefit much from hosting the GOP’s big event.

Jay Nelson was standing outside the grocery store he manages in downtown Milwaukee when one of his regular customers stopped by on her daily walk through the neighborhood.

“I’ve been telling people to come and buy even just a bottle of wine,” she said, holding out her arms. “I hope it helps.”

Nelson gave her a hug and said they could use all the help they could get.

The store he’s run for nearly a decade, Downtown Market & Smoke Shop, was one of several businesses sealed off with tall metal fencing ahead of the 2024 Republican National Convention. The massive structure shut down parts of downtown for more than a week.

For small businesses like Downtown Market, the RNC failed to deliver a decisive victory. Instead, it hampered sales despite earlier promises that it would provide an economic boost.

“I want you to take all your money to Milwaukee, spend it that week and leave it in Milwaukee,” Mayor Johnson said two years ago at the RNC summer meeting, where it was announced that the city would host the GOP national convention.

But Samir Saddique, owner of Downtown Market and the adjacent Avenue Liquor, said the convention achieved “a whole lot of nothing.” Traffic and sales plummeted after the fence went up in front of the stores. By July 18, the last day of the RNC, the liquor store had only generated 10% of its usual sales, he said.

“We are cut off from the rest of the world,” Saddique said.

Across the Milwaukee River, which marked the eastern boundary of the RNC’s secure zone, only one seat was occupied at the bar at Elwood’s Liquor & Tap during their July 17 happy hour. Normally, this is a busy night for the red-booth bar near the Fiserv Forum, where the convention’s main stage was located.

“Everyone was promised this was going to be a huge money maker for businesses,” said bar manager Sam Chung, 30. “So it’s strange to see how much it has actually killed business for a lot of people outside the perimeter.”

Even their most loyal customers didn’t come during RNC week, Chung said.

“They don’t want to come here at all because it’s obviously a mess to get here,” she said, adding that she thought “a lot of that is because a lot of our regulars are Democrats.”

Adam Buker, a 21-year-old barista at a coffee shop near one of the convention’s exits, which leads attendees onto a wide street, said that when the RNC was in town, he played music by queer artists as his own protest. Still, the door at Canary Coffee Bar kept swinging open.

“It has 100% to do with our location,” Buker said on July 18 as he packed espresso coffee for a cortado with a Frank Ocean song playing in the background.

Although outside the security zone, the cafe’s glass storefront and buttery-yellow sidewalk seating weren’t obstructed by fencing like Saddique’s liquor and convenience stores. Nor did RNC attendees have to cross the river to get to the coffee shop, unlike Elwood’s.

Democrats need to perform well in Milwaukee to counter Republican forces in more rural parts of Wisconsin. Trump won the state narrowly in 2016, before losing it to President Joe Biden by just 21,000 votes four years later.

Wisconsin is one of the few true swing states that could go either way in this election and determine who wins the White House. Four of the last six presidential elections in Wisconsin have been decided by less than one percentage point.

As Tyler Schmitt, 28, and his partner Ken Ragan, 24, lay sprawled in the long grass at a park west of the convention grounds on July 17, they weighed the pros and cons of Milwaukee hosting.

Ragan said she could do without the traffic headaches. But Schmitt, an urban farmer, said he sees positives.

“From a small business perspective, it brings good energy to tourism and good press,” he said. “It’s pretty much downtown, and I think downtown is appropriate.”

But the downtown location still meant that police, including visiting officers from around the country, were on Milwaukee’s streets. On July 16, officers in Columbus, Ohio, shot and killed Samuel Sharpe, a man living in a homeless encampment about a mile from the convention site.

Sharpe had a knife in each hand and advanced toward another man, ignoring officers’ commands before shooting him, authorities said. The shooting remains under investigation.

Sharpe’s sister, Angelique Sharpe, blamed the presence of out-of-state officers for his death.

“I would rather have the Milwaukee Police Department that knows the people in this community than people who have no ties to your community and don’t care about our extended family members there,” she said.

At a rally after her brother was killed, Angelique Sharpe said her brother suffered from multiple sclerosis and acted in self-defense against a person who had threatened him in recent days.

Activists in the city also questioned whether the focus on Congress had minimized the more pressing, systemic problems in Milwaukee.

Hours before Trump took the stage at the convention to deliver his address to delegates on July 18, dozens of protesters held a rally a block from the convention grounds to draw attention to the deaths of Sharpe and another Black man, D’Vontaye Mitchell, who died last month after being detained by security guards at a nearby hotel.

“They come here and make money off our city, but when we get hurt and we need them, they’re not here,” said Karl Harris, Mitchell’s cousin.