Trump to hold election night watch party at the Palm Beach County Convention Center

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign will host an election watch party in his home county on Nov. 5, but the event will not be at Mar-a-Lago.

Instead, the festivities will take place at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. The selection of the West Palm Beach facility marks a change as previous watch parties in 2022 and Super Tuesday took place at Trump’s Palm Beach club.

In 2016, however, Trump celebrated his election victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in New York. In 2020, Trump held an election night event in Washington.

An advisory sent by the campaign Monday morning, Oct. 28, did not give a reason for the choice of the convention center. The venue swap suggests the campaign is expecting a crush of not just national but international media, as well as an expanded list of attendees, including donors and supporters, for what it expects will be a victory celebration.

Polls show a tight race nationally, and in the seven battleground states critical for the former president and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic rival, to achieve the required 270 electoral votes.

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According to a pair of surveys released on Sunday, Oct. 27, the candidates are still neck-and-neck in polls.

A CBS News/YouGov poll showed Harris leading Trump nationally by 50%-49% among likely voters, slightly down from a 51%-48% advantage in mid-October, but well within the survey’s margin of error.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll showed Harris leading Trump by 51% to 47% among likely voters, partly to Harris’ advantage among women voters. The results are slightly outside the poll’s margin of error, +/-2.5 percentage points.

Pollsters agreed that the election will likely be decided by which campaign does the better job of turning out voters in the stretch leading up to Election Day.

What is not expected to be a cliffhanger is the contest for Florida’s 30 electoral votes. Recent polls by Emerson College, the University of North Florida and the Florida Chamber of Commerce show Trump with comfortable leads.

Although Florida is not considered a swing state, Trump delivered two speeches at the convention center this summer — at the Turning Point USA summit in July and the previous month at the Club 47 gathering to celebrate Trump’s birthday.