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Marco Bello

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Just down the road from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/2024/05/10/mar-a-lago-trump/">Mar-a-Lago estate</a> where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/donald-trump/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">Donald Trump</a> was assembling<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/trump-administration-appointees/"> his Cabinet</a>, local officials last month held their own high-stakes discussion: What to do about the traffic?

“Could we do a state of emergency?” asked one member of the  Town Council. “Because this is.”

The president-elect wasn’t the only reason the roads were congested, but his presence made things worse. The Secret Service had tightened security in recent months and started blocking off part of the island town’s main boulevard, effectively splitting  it in half.

Now Trump was headed back to the White House, and VIPs were flocking to his Florida home base. A business owner told the council one of his senior employees had  resigned because he couldn’t handle the traffic.  The business owner begged for help with congestion that loomed “for at least the next four years or more,” according to an online recording.

Another council member wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving and added: “I hope it’s safe, and I hope we’re not sitting in traffic too long.”

Follow <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/02/trump-administration-transition/" target=_blank>live updates on the transition</a> to Trump’s second presidency. We’re <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/trump-administration-appointees/" target=_blank>tracking the people Trump has picked or is considering to fill his Cabinet</a> and key positions in his administration.

The busy roads are  only one sign of the change Trump has brought to Palm Beach, a wealthy strip of South Florida full of chic<b> </b>resorts and snowbirds who arrive for the winter. It has just over 9,000 full-time residents. It has been his legal residence since 2019 and is the base of his presidential transition, with a flurry of post-election activity solidifying the town’s place at the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/15/trump-maralago-transition-nominees/" target=_blank>center of the political universe </a>— for better and for worse.

Politicians, lobbyists, MAGA influencers and business leaders are flocking to town, snapping up hotel rooms and sometimes showing up  at restaurants with security. Real estate agents say they are fielding more interest in high-end properties. TV networks are camped out to cover the action, providing free publicity for the county — which has traditionally leaned Democratic but which Trump<a href="https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/06/trump-nearly-won-palm-beach-county-for-first-time-in-reclaiming-white-house-democrat-deep-blue/76089434007/"> almost won </a>this year.

“Everybody wants to be in Palm Beach County — the Republicans, anyways,” said Michael Barnett, a former county commissioner who used to chair the local GOP. “It’s nice to be able to say you live in Trump’s backyard.”

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But all the VIP activity has also rankled some longtime residents. Heightened protection for Trump — in the wake of two apparent assassination attempts — can be disruptive. There’s only one road running through much of Palm Beach, and law enforcement closes a portion of it by Mar-a-Lago when Trump is in town. The latest shutdown went into effect the day before the election “until further notice.”

Palm Beach police even put out a bulletin this past week pleading with drivers to behave better: “Everyone will eventually get where they are going, but honking horns, illegal and aggressive passing, and merging will not make you or traffic move faster,” <a href="https://www.townofpalmbeach.com/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2343">it read</a>.

Town leaders have said they are working hard to ease the backups. “Especially in light of the results of the election … we owe it to our community that every option’s on the table for solutions,” council member Ted Cooney said at last month’s meeting. The mayor, town manager and members of the town council did not respond to requests for comment over the holiday week.

The area around Mar-a-Lago was quieter for the Thanksgiving holiday. Sheriff’s cars flanked a nearby bridge that connects its barrier island to the neighboring city of West Palm Beach. CNN reporters set up by the railing to watch for signs of activity at the president’s club, joined by tourists and Trump fans who sometimes wandered by.

Craig Sayre, 70, who splits his time between Connecticut and nearby Boynton Beach,  was biking by when cars left Trump’s estate, causing a brief holdup. He continued across the bridge, then waited for a drawbridge to go down.

A boat with a large gun chugged along nearby. The two apparent attempts on Trump’s life this year had changed things, Sayre said. Security seemed “a lot tighter” compared with Trump’s first term, he said, and “everybody’s not as smiley.”

Scott Olson

Robert Swidler, 78, biked up beside Sayre and complained about the road closure.

“It’s killing us,” Swidler said. “It’s killing all the local residents.”

Trump, a lifelong New Yorker, bought Mar-a-Lago in the 1980s and<a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/01/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-anti-semitism-town-council-palm-beach-politics-224537/"> turned it into</a> a members-only social club. He frequented the “Winter White House” during his first term in office and eventually made it <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/10/31/trump-is-changing-his-residence-nyc-florida-new-yorkers-said-good-riddance/">his official residence</a>. His campaign was headquartered in the area; now his transition planning is unfolding at Mar-a-Lago and offices across the water in West Palm Beach.

The surrounding county used to back Democrats by wide margins in presidential elections. In 2016, Palm Beach County favored Hillary Clinton over Trump by 15 percentage points. But Florida has swung to the right since then. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) won the county in 2022, and Trump  lost it by less than 1 percentage point this year.

Now Trump allies, job-seekers and power brokers have all descended. Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, joined the Mar-a-Lago festivities in mid-November. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg came for a meeting with Trump ahead of the holidays, and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk sat next to the president-elect on Thanksgiving.

Video<a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1862331915337945516?s=46"> shared</a> by Musk on social media shows him at a table with Trump and his family as “Y.M.C.A.” blasts. Trump slaps Musk on the back as people around them start to dance.

Club 47, a South Florida-based group that calls itself the biggest Trump fan club in the country, is touting a special guest for its meeting this week in West Palm Beach: Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser who now hosts a MAGA podcast. The event sold out soon after it was advertised.

The busy winter season is just beginning for the Palm Beach area’s hotels and restaurants. But the buzz around Trump has already amped up demand. Bernardo Neto, general manager of the luxury hotel The Ben, estimated the property has seen about 15 percent more reservations than usual in recent weeks. “We’ll probably see that for a good part of his administration,” Neto said.

“We have an increase in demand for rooms, for different services, for transportation to restaurants,” echoed Milton Segarra, the CEO of Palm Beach County’s tourism marketing agency. “We have seen a massive amount of security details.”

Carlos Barria

Business in the region was already growing, said Kelly Smallridge, the president of Palm Beach County’s economic development agency. Wealth and financial firms have <a href="https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/local/westpb/2024/08/02/palm-beach-county-florida-growth-wealth-influx-office-boom-school-waitlists/74588634007/">flowed into</a> the county in recent years, she said, and Trump’s win “has created an extra layer of buzz and activity.”

“The amount of publicity that Palm Beach and West Palm Beach has received, from an<b> </b>economic development advertising standpoint, is something that we never could have afforded,” she added.

Real estate agent Jonathan Duerr, who focuses on luxury properties, said there’s been more interest in homes, too, and predicted a new flurry of customers from the D.C. area.

“We’ve always had the Northeast and New York interest. … Now all of a sudden we’re hitting that next bubble or wave of political people — politics and everything that surrounds it,” he said.

Stanford University, BA in English

Hannah Knowles is a national politics reporter covering campaigns at The Washington Post. She previously reported for The Post's general assignment desk.

Hannah Knowles

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How Trump is changing Palm Beach: VIPs, traffic drama and booming business

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