■ MAYOR: Buddy Dyer isn’t going to the president’s rally, but he hopes interactions will be peaceful.
Buddy Dyer is the deep-blue mayor of deep-blue Orlando, where the number of registered Democrats more than doubles the number of Republicans.
At first, Dyer said, he was surprised President Donald Trump, known for attracting bright red crowds donning his trademark hat, picked the City Beautiful to officially kick-off his 2020 campaign. But, the choice highlights the importance of Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa that often decides big races for Florida.
“If you’re going to do something big, you want to do it in Orlando, right?” Dyer said. “You’ve got to perform pretty well in the I-4 corridor if you’re going to win the presidency.”
When Trump brings his rally to Interstate 4 on Tuesday night — the Amway Center is feet from the highway — Dyer won’t be there.
He says he’s never met Trump and doesn’t have any plans to do so this week.
Dyer, who describes himself as a fiscal conservative and social progressive, said he doesn’t yet know what will be on his schedule for Tuesday.
Clearly top of mind, though, is how the city will handle what is expected to be an onslaught of visitors — who both support and oppose Trump.
The president tweeted earlier this week that his campaign has processed more than 74,000 requests for tickets to the 20,000-seat arena. Entry will be granted on a first-come, firstserved basis and city officials expect attendees to begin lining up as early as the day before.
And there are multiple groups planning counter-rallies nearby.
Dyer said he hoped interactions
would be peaceful, and that out of town visitors would come prepared for piping-hot temperatures and the potential for summer storms.
“Hopefully we’ll be Orlando,” he said, a nod to the city’s reputation for unity after the mass shooting at Pulse night club three years ago. “And everything will be peaceful and everybody will figure out they can live with each other.”
The Trump campaign first wanted to hold its rally at the Orlando City Stadium, but the team said the venue wasn’t available.
“We didn’t negotiate as we are neutral and have an important Cup game on Wednesday,” said spokesman Diogo Kotscho.
The campaign then approached the public Amway arena, home to the Orlando Magic. The team happens to be owned by the DeVos family and Betsy DeVos is Trump’s education secretary.
Dyer’s own State of the City address was scheduled for Tuesday morning, but he rescheduled for the following week to avoid piling on to what he expects to be a long day for city staff and the Orlando Police Department.
“It was going to be taxing on city resources to have a presidential visit and we didn’t want to add a complication of having a State of the City on the same day,” Dyer said.
Dyer, first elected in 2003, is now Orlando’s longest serving mayor and has presided over the city at a time when the region’s politics have shifted farther away from the right. When he was first elected, Republicans made up nearly 30 percent of registered voters. Today, Republicans are just 22 percent of the city’s electorate, according to a Sentinel analysis.
Countywide, Orange voters overwhelmingly went for Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016, and heavily favored Andrew Gillum for governor and Bill Nelson for U.S. Senate over Trump-allied candidates Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott last year.
And the county’s congressional and legislative delegations as well as its Board of County Commissioners have gone from majority Republicans, to mostly Democrats in recent years. Orange voters elected some of the most vocal progressives in the state Legislature such as Carlos Guillermo Smith and Anna Eskamani.
Dyer, who is running for reelection in November, said voters in the region likely want to hear a unifying message from presidential candidates. So far, he has three opponents — all Democrats — City Commissioner Sam Ings, non-profit consultant Aretha Simons and Shantele Bennett.
“I think what people really want to hear is more about unity and less about divisiveness,” Dyer said.
He said cities and mayors have tried to lead on issues that separate them from Trump, including climate change after the president pulled out of the 195-nation Paris Agreement. The city has a goal of powering itself by renewable energy, in which Orlando joined with dozens of other cities, and this month banned singleuse plastics at its venues.
Dyer and the city council also voted in support of the Trust Act in Orlando, a policy forbidding city staffers and police officers from asking a law-abiding person’s immigration status.
“We’ve never had a president that was making news virtually everyday,” Dyer said. “A lot of the things that occur, may not effect local governments specifically, but when there’s issues related to immigration, that effects some percentage of the population in Orlando, so a lot of this stuff effects us indirectly.”
As city officials scramble to prepare for big crowds on Tuesday, Dyer said he’s confident things will run smoothly. After all, the city is a world-wide destination accustomed to hosting college bowl games as well as Orlando Magic games and Broadway shows on the same night.
His goal, he said, is to show Orlando’s best side, “just like in the aftermath of Pulse.”
“We’re going to have a national, or even international, role on Tuesday,” Dyer said. “We feel pretty comfortable that we can handle it. We handle big stuff all the time.”
“I think what people really want to hear is more about unity and less about divisiveness.” — Buddy Dyer