When Republicans gather in Milwaukee next month to nominate him for president, Donald J. Trump planned to stay not in the convention’s host city but at a Trump hotel in Chicago, some 90 miles away, according to three people briefed on the former president’s logistics.

That changed midafternoon on Tuesday, after reporters for The Times and an ABC affiliate in Chicago contacted his campaign for comment.

Mr. Trump now intends to stay in Milwaukee, two of the people briefed on his logistics said. The change avoids a perceived slight to the largest city in Wisconsin, a vital battleground state.

Mr. Trump has been on the defensive about his views on Milwaukee since news outlets reported last week that he called it a “horrible” city in a private meeting with House Republicans in Washington.

Following that report, a Trump campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, pushed back but added that Mr. Trump had denounced “how terrible crime and voter fraud are” in Milwaukee, reviving his false claims of voter fraud there in 2020.

And Mr. Trump offered a similar explanation hours later to a Fox News reporter, saying, “I love Milwaukee. I have great friends in Milwaukee” while repeating his complaints about crime and nonexistent voter fraud.