The Democrats have decided to hold their national convention in Chicago ahead of the 2024 election, where they will try to maintain their momentum built after surprisingly favorable results in last year’s midterm elections.
The decision, confirmed Tuesday by a Democratic official who asked not to be named because no public announcement has been made, comes after President Joe Biden chose Chicago over other finalist cities including Atlanta and New York.
Chicago is solidly majority Democratic, as indeed is the entire state of Illinois. But calling the caucus in such a pro-union city shows that Biden remains staunchly committed to unionism, which will be crucial to winning a second term in the White House.
The decision could also serve as a counterbalance to that of the Republicans, to hold their 2024 convention in another crucial location in the Midwest of the country, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The 2020 Democratic convention was supposed to be in Milwaukee, but it was held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. Back then, Biden delivered a speech accepting his party’s nomination at a nearly empty convention center in Wilmington, Delaware, where she has a home and often spends her weekends.
Milwaukee, however, used the preparations for 2020 to argue that the Republicans already have an infrastructure ready for their caucus next year.
Chicago was the site of a historic Democratic convention: that of 1968, when violent clashes broke out between police officers and demonstrators protesting against the Vietnam War. The last time the Democrats held their convention there was in 1996, when Bill Clinton was running for re-election.
Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker lobbied for Chicago to host the meeting this time. He pointed to the party’s aspiration to attract more members in the Midwest, particularly Michigan, where the party retained the governorship and won control of both houses of the state legislature in last year’s midterm elections. .
However, for Chicago to beat Atlanta came as a surprise given Georgia’s strategic importance as a battleground state. Biden won Georgia two years ago, becoming the first Democrat to do so in a presidential election since Clinton in 1992, and his party now controls both of his Senate seats after victories that drew national attention in the past two cycles.
Although Atlanta is as completely Democratic as Chicago and New York, Georgia could well be a major deciding factor in the 2024 presidential race.
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