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Six delegates from California are in North Carolina to participate in the Republican National Convention, which will include a mix of in-person and online events over four days starting Monday, Aug. 24.

The coronavirus has forced planners to change and re-change the event several times in recent weeks, from an all-live event in North Carolina to a live event in Florida and, finally, to a hybrid event centered in Charlotte, North Carolina. And as late as Friday evening details of who will speak, and when, were still largely under wraps.

The format will prompt some last-minute adjustments to convention tradition. For example, a half dozen delegates from each state will now cast proxy votes in Charlotte for more than 2,000 delegates around the country. Those votes will formally nominate President Donald Trump as the GOP’s candidate for 2020.

Also, instead of accepting that nomination during one of the spirited rallies that have become a trademark of his campaigns, Trump is slated to appear each night of the convention and deliver a formal acceptance speech live, Thursday night, on the White House lawn, before a small contingency of Republican officials.

Some local GOP politicians — including Rep. Ken Calvert of Corona, Rep. Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita and Assemblyman Jay Obernolte of Big Bear, who was a Trump delegate in 2016 — said scheduling conflicts or family obligations would keep them from participating in this year’s convention.

Staff and consultants for a few other area Republicans said their bosses didn’t apply to be one of the three Trump delegates selected from each congressional district this year. They said they were concerned about how attending the convention might impact their reelection chances in Southern California districts that are increasingly purple and where Trump isn’t popular.

That intra-GOP divide also is evident in other ways. The most recent GOP president, pre-Trump, George W. Bush, for example, isn’t slated to speak at the convention. By comparison, past GOP conventions featured previous presidents and candidates speaking up for that year’s nominee. And the just-concluded Democratic convention featured three past presidents, a past presidential candidate, and many of the people who, earlier this year, ran against nominee Joe Biden.

But local Trump delegates brush aside any talk of division. Many insist the naysayers comprise just a small contingency who felt the same way in 2016 and aren’t connected to today’s Republican party.

“Some of those Republicans who spoke, they’ve lost touch with the Republican base and they’ve actually lost touch with the middle of the country,” said Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Republican Party of Orange County. He plans to participate remotely in the convention as a first-time GOP delegate.

“This convention is about this president and this set of policies, not the policies that were there 20 years ago,” Whitaker said.

The convention, themed “Honoring the Great American Story,” is slated to begin at 6 a.m. PST each day with a series of virtual meetings and caucuses for the party, though delegates said Friday they were still waiting for a schedule of events. Then there should be speeches and performances from 5:30 to 8 p.m., with surprise and high-profile guests expected to appear during the last hour each night leading up to Trump’s acceptance speech.

The main events will be carried on local and cable TV news channels. They’ll also be streaming on platforms such as Amazon Prime and through Alexa-enabled devices.

One of the most prominent Californians at this year’s RNC will be Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, who is billed as “chairman of the convention.” He’ll be in Charlotte on Monday to formally gavel in Trump and Vice President Mike Pence as the GOP nominees, according to McCarthy’s campaign. He also has a Thursday evening speaking slot, and he plans to attend Trump’s acceptance speech that night.

Five of the six California delegates expected to cast votes in North Carolina are from Southern California. That includes state California Republican Party Chair Jessica Patterson of Simi Valley; Shawn Steel of Seal Beach, who’s a committee member with the Republican National Convention and husband to Orange County supervisor Michelle Steel; Howard Hakes, who owns auto dealerships in the Los Angeles area and is vice chair of the state party; Martha House of Puente Hills, who is a former president of the California Federation of Republican Women; and Mario Rodriguez of San Clemente, who has led coalitions of Latinos for Trump.

Also in North Carolina is Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney who’s been leading the charge against California’s stay-at-home orders during the pandemic.

Dhillon said she was an “enthusiastic” Trump supporter in 2016 and that the president has exceeded her expectations during his first term in office. She offered particular praise for how Trump lowered taxes for many Americans, the number of Republican judges he’s appointed, and what she described as his “toughness with America’s enemies.”

Calvert, whose 42nd District includes most of western Riverside County, said he can’t attend Trump’s speech due a conflicting engagement but he’ll be tuning in remotely. In addition to seeing Trump and Pence speak, he said he’s most excited to hear from former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who he said “had a birds-eye view of the impacts of the administration’s leadership around the world – particularly in Israel and the Middle East.”

Haley is also the speaker who most excites Randall Avila, a Yorba Linda resident and first-time Trump delegate who is executive director of the Orange County GOP. Avila believes Haley represents the future of the Republican party, with widespread speculation that she’ll run for president in 2024.

“I’m definitely looking at who’s going to have their breakout moment the way Senator Obama did,” Avila said, referring to President Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention when he was an Illinois senator in 2004. “I’m looking at who’s going to stand out and who’s going to be a star.”

Avila also said he’s eager to see how his party will pull off a largely virtual convention. He and others noted that Republicans had an advantage of watching the Democrats try first to pull off a fully virtual convention, so they could take notes on what worked and what fell flat.

Several local delegates said they feel the Democratic convention was too negative and “dystopian.” And they dismissed suggestions that Trump paints a dark picture of the United States. For example, Dhillon said Trump’s recent comments about anarchy and lawlessness in the streets only apply to places under Democratic leadership, which she said Trump isn’t responsible for.

And Calvert added: “The DNC was a star-studded production full of Hollywood elites and remnants of the Clinton-Obama regimes that voters rejected in 2016.

“I am looking forward to a bigger focus during the RNC on ordinary American families who were experiencing greater economic opportunities thanks to Republican policies before the pandemic struck.”

Whitaker has attended three previous conventions and said he knows it will be difficult to match that excitement through a television screen. But he noted that Trump had a successful reality TV show with “The Apprentice” for several years, so he said he’s excited to see how that translates at the convention.

No speaker lineup had been announced Friday. But members of the Trump family are expected to speak, along with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, GOP House candidate Sean Parnell of Pennsylvania, and other key party figures.

Other names that have been circulating include a handful of non-politicians who came to fame via viral internet video. One is Nick Sandmann, a Kentucky high school student who early last year became popular in conservative quarters after initial media reports mischaracterized his group’s encounter with a Native American protester. Others are Patricia and Mark McCloskey, who recently were charged with unlawful use of weapons after they pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in front of their home in a gated St. Louis community.

Avila said such guests will prove to be “different and interesting.” Whitaker said they show how everyday Americans have been “treated by the system.”

Also reportedly on the docket is a Democrat, Rep. Vernon Jones of Georgia. Jones, who has endorsed Trump, is the GOP’s answer to the slate of disaffected Republicans who appeared at the DNC.

Dhillon dismissed the Republicans who spoke at the DNC as “a bunch of old has-beens.” And she said she doesn’t think the lack of a big, in-person convention will dampen excitement for Trump supporters heading into November.

“Our voters are fired up,” Dhillon said. “I don’t think there’s going to be any enthusiasm lag here.”