Democrats will confirm their presidential nominee in the Midwest. If he runs again, President Biden will be nominated for a second term at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, according to the DNC.
The Democratic convention returns to Chicago after 1996. Given the current political climate, some worry that 2024 could repeat the 1968 Chicago convention, which “was a catastrophe that hardly needs explaining — masses of shaggy-haired protesters battling police,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
However, the 1996 conference is fondly remembered. “Events held across the city as Chicago used the convention to showcase its beauty and diversity” made it “a literal and figurative turning of the page from the 1968 Democratic National Convention,”
The New York Times noted that Chicago is “a liberal place that embraces abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and labor and civil rights — and that Illinois reflected the diversity of the nation.” Will the conference attract Midwestern voters? Will the heightened political landscape resemble 1968?
No city compares.
Chicago hosting the DNC “reawakens something that feels like hope,” according to the Chicago Tribune editorial board. The Tribune believes that Chicago likely won the convention because “no other city comes close to pulling off the number of national political conventions that Chicago has hosted for both parties.”
The Tribune notes that Chicago is still a major union town, whereas Atlanta, its biggest convention opponent, is in “a ‘right-to-work’ state where workers are not required to join a union as a condition of employment.” Given Biden’s pro-union stance, Chicago could benefit.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois had 735,000 union members in 2022, compared to Georgia’s 200,000. This may have influenced the DNC’s choice.
Chicago’s location benefits Democrats. “Well because, you know, we’re in the Midwest here – and it’s undoubtedly Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota — those seats are going to be in play,” political consultant Pete Giangreco
. North Central College political science professor Stephen Maynard Caliendo said that while a convention’s site seldom affects voters, Chicago’s working-class character is “going to be an important part of the message for the Democrats next year.”
“Throwing away a chance to grow”
Because the South will likely be an important demographic in the 2024 election, not everyone liked Chicago. Forgoing Georgia for Illinois, which is already blue, “national Democrats are also jettisoning a chance to gain a bigger foothold in a pivotal battleground state that both parties see as key to winning in 2024,” Greg Bluestein and Riley Bunch write for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“Good for Chicago, but I think the activity and action in the general election of 2024 is going to be right here,” former Georgia Democratic Party chairman Bobby Kahn tells the Constitution, adding that his state “is still very much in the center of politics and presidential politics in particular.”