DALLAS — Every year, Belinda Sumner, from Mission, Texas, and Nuri Vitiello, from Washington, D.C., take a “sister trip” together. This year they will trade their usual massages and days at the pool for stump speeches at the American Airlines Center.<\/p>\n
Seeing President Donald Trump and other leaders at the party’s two-day convention is as much of a treat, they said.<\/p>\n
Other than a Tuesday night dinner at Crown Block, the restaurant at the top of Reunion Tower which boasts a panoramic view of the city, they will spend most of their time in Dallas at the convention that’s aimed at drumming up voter enthusiasm ahead of the November midterms.<\/p>\n
The sisters, Hispanic Republicans who grew up in the Rio Grande Valley, are supporters of the GOP’s efforts to tighten immigration enforcement. Vitiello’s husband served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during Trump’s first term.<\/p>\n
The sisters say they are proud of the Trump administration’s focus on voter integrity and are excited to be surrounded by like-minded people at the convention, away from the toxicity of those who speak negatively about America.<\/p>\n
“I want good news and … energy, something uplifting,” Vitiello said.<\/p>\n
The sisters will attend as guests of opera singer Christopher Macchio, who will perform on Wednesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n
At the Hilton Anatole on Tuesday morning, the sprawling lobby was a landing pad for Republicans who flew in from Delaware, Kentucky and even Guam, the U.S. island territory in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
One of those attendees, Illinois Republican party chair Bob Grogan, said the convention would be an opportunity for “stars” of the Republican Party to get a “long-form” opportunity to tell their story and tout how Trump has cut government spending by shrinking some federal agencies.<\/p>\n
As a Republican from a blue state, Grogan said people were increasingly “voting with their feet” and moving to red states where the cost of living is lower. Grogan said he hoped the convention would boost Illinois Republicans who want to change that, especially Darren Bailey, who is challenging incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat. Pritzker will join Texas Democrats at a news conference Wednesday morning in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Cory Dennis, executive director of the Louisiana GOP, arrived in Dallas on Monday afternoon. He said he hopes the convention will energize voters ahead of “competitive races” in November.<\/p>\n
Dennis arrived early to help the 74 members of his state’s delegation get settled. He spent his down time Monday night eating dinner and listening to live music at St. Martin’s Wine Bistro in Old East Dallas.<\/p>\n
The Lafayette native said Republican leaders should focus on the administration’s economic wins at the convention.<\/p>\n
“Our economy is booming. We just announced that SpaceX is coming to Louisiana,” Dennis said. “It’s a great time to be a Republican.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS — Every year, Belinda Sumner, from Mission, Texas, and Nuri Vitiello, from Washington, D.C., take a “sister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103],"class_list":["post-430517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}