Palm Beach, a Democratic pocket in Florida, becomes MAGA central
Republicans descend on the enclave to be near Mar-a-Lago, snarling traffic, jostling for hotel rooms and looking to buy homes.
RH Rooftop Restaurant is one of the most popular spots in West Palm Beach, a short drive over the bridge from tony Palm Beach. Guests look forward to enjoying the tranquil skylight garden surrounded by trickling fountains and olive trees.
But it isn’t so serene these days. With prominent Republican leaders eating there, Secret Service agents in dark suits fill the sun-drenched dining room. The security team passes metal-detector wands over guests before they enter. Diners are only about 3 miles away from the Mar-a-Lago resort, where a revolving cast of political and finance luminaries come and go for meetings or job interviews with President-elect Donald Trump.
“Palm Beach becomes almost the centre of the universe,” said Don Peebles, a real-estate developer in Miami and New York who knows Mr Trump. “He will meet heads of state there, too.” This discreet enclave of about 10,000 full-time residents is part of an area that has long tilted blue. While Florida went heavily for Mr Trump on Election Day, voters in Palm Beach County slightly backed the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris. But with Mr Trump spending so much time in the area, the town of Palm Beach is emerging as the biggest playground for the incoming administration and luminaries of the MAGA movement.
A popular hotel now houses foreign dignitaries, federal officials, and various others vying for government jobs, all meeting with Mr Trump during the frenetic transition period. Traffic is so bad on the island of Palm Beach that longtime residents said they have to drive off on one of three bridges and then drive back on another to avoid bumper-to-bumper tie-ups. And Secret Service agents at the area’s chicest restaurants can outnumber the waitstaff.
Mr Trump spent much of his first term as president at Mar-a-Lago, his 17-acre oceanfront compound and private club that he referred to as his winter White House. He entertained heads of state and based much of his campaign and fundraising efforts there. He stayed nearly 150 days at the compound during his first term.
In some ways, residents said, it now feels like a replay of Season One of the Mr Trump presidency. But this time around, he is likely to spend more time at Mar-a-Lago, said a number of his close associates. Some of the wealthiest members of his circle are thinking about buying homes there.
His transition operation now resides within the gilded walls of his estate, where he interviews candidates for cabinet and staff roles. Mar-a-Lago and nearby communities are poised to become the country’s new center of political gravity.
Hotels near Mr Trump’s compound are all booked up. Government officials and media are bidding against each other to secure rooms through January at West Palm Beach’s The Ben hotel, said Timothy Hodes, who is an owner. Major news networks have taken rooms with balconies that overlook the Intracoastal Waterway and the island of Palm Beach to use as the backdrop for their news programs. Others who come with large security details stay for quick, two-day trips, and travel back and forth between Mar-a-Lago and the hotel.
“Whether it’s to eat crab cakes or have an official meeting, they’re staying here and heading there,” said Bernardo Neto, the hotel’s general manager.
On Thursday afternoon, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Secretary-General Mark Rutte arrived at the hotel by motorcade, flanked by a security detail. Men dressed in black suits and wearing wire earpieces commanded the elevators to secure the pool deck.
Typically, at this point in the transition, the president-elect works with the General Services Administration, a government entity that provides temporary office space in Washington, D.C., and other resources. That was what Mr Trump did during his first term.
Not this time. He has yet to sign on with the GSA, according to a statement it released this month. That means he hasn’t accepted a single square foot of office space in Washington, D.C. And that would make Mr Trump the first president-elect who didn’t accept resources as part of the transition since they were offered starting in 1963, said Martha Joynt Kumar, a professor emeritus at Towson University and a presidential scholar.
“It’s not unusual for a president-elect to run their campaign and transition out of the place they live,” a spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition said. “Trump loves Florida and the great people in the state.” Florida is more than Trump HQ. About a quarter of Trump’s cabinet and staff picks either hail from the state or have deep ties there. Mr Trump’s older sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, both have homes near Mar-a-Lago. Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, who said he would continue to advise the Trump team, live in South Florida.
Palm Beach itself has changed dramatically over the past 2 1/2 weeks. Lobbyists, lawyers, government officials and others seeking an audience with the president-elect on the golf course or in his palace have descended there.
Some of the recent arrivals are looking for permanent homes. Jared Robins, a real-estate adviser, said his phone started ringing off the hook once Mr Trump won. Many of his clients are from the D.C. area and are either connected to the government or have businesses that deal closely with the government. Since the election, Mr Robins has shown homes to a person who works closely with Mr Trump and flew down to Palm Beach to check out the real estate.
Vince Marotta, a real-estate agent, recently received a call from someone whose client -- a person he would identify only as part of the president-elect’s “brain trust” -- was looking to spend between $10 million and $15 million on a home near Mar-a-Lago.
“We call that a home in the midrange,” Mr Marotta said.
Many of Palm Beach’s old guard aren’t pleased. Because the road in front of Mar-a-Lago is now closed, traffic has never been worse on the island. What would usually take a couple minutes to drive can now delay residents by half an hour.
Ashley Miller Bell, a longtime Palm Beach resident who has moved to another part of the state, is glad to dodge the parade of newcomers. “The halo effect of Trump is going to make it more congested and busier than ever,” she said. “I’m grateful that we have moved south to avoid a lot of the traffic.” Still, her mother, Marguerite Miller, a Palm Beach resident, said she doesn’t object. She has learned to allow more time for traffic when going to places like church.
The Mar-a-Lago helipad, which the town allowed during the first Trump administration, was demolished after that term was over. Residents said they regret that move and are hoping it is rebuilt again to help ease the traffic caused by his motorcade.
The Palm Beach and West Palm Beach area has enjoyed a renaissance since Mr Trump was last in power. At the beginning of the pandemic, the hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin based a trading floor for his market-making operation, Citadel Securities, at the Four Seasons in Palm Beach. He has since settled his headquarters in Miami. Thousands of other new, well-heeled residents descended into the region, when working from home became a fact of life.
Conservative media personalities, including Sean Hannity, relocated to the area in recent years.
More than $19 billion in wealth has moved to Palm Beach County since the beginning of 2019, according to Internal Revenue Service data analysed by CoStar.
The billionaire real-estate developer Stephen Ross has based his company in the area. Major financial firms such as Millennium Management and Blackrock have offices in the West Palm Beach area. Vanderbilt University recently said that it is seeking to open a graduate campus there.
Jeff Greene, a billionaire developer who lives one property away from Mar-a-Lago, is building One West Palm, a 1.5 million square foot office, hotel and apartment complex across the bridge from the island of Palm Beach that is the tallest structure in the county.
Mr Greene expects that the president-elect will spend a lot of time in and around Palm Beach throughout the second term. “Trump is a creature of habit,” he said.
The Wall St Journal
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