Global Courant 2023-04-11 21:24:07
The Democratic National Committee is hosting its 2024 presidential nominating convention in Chicago, the DNC announced Tuesday.
The Windy City defeated bids from Atlanta and New York to host the convention after Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson pitched President Biden to host the Democratic National Convention there.
The Chicago skyline with Lake Michigan in the foreground is seen on October 16, 2022. (Vincent D. Johnson/Xinhua via Getty Images)
the DNC, stressed in her congressional city’s announcement that the party is giving back the Midwest, calling it “a critical Democratic stronghold,” and that Illinois, along with Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, were part of the “blue wall” that was critical to President Biden’s victory at the White House in 2020.
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Biden, who had the final say in the decision, stressed in a statement that “Chicago is an excellent choice to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, Thursday, August 20, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
“Democrats will come together to show our historic progress, including building an economy from the center and bottom up, not the top down,” the president added.
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And in a hint at his expected re-election announcement later this year, Biden said that “from repairing our roads and bridges to unleashing a manufacturing boom and creating more than 12.5 million new high-paying jobs, we have already delivered so much for hard-working Americans – now it’s time to get the job done.”
Supporters celebrate after it was reported that Brandon Johnson had taken a lead against Paul Vallas in the mayoral election at a Johnson election night rally at the Marriott Marquis Chicago hotel on Tuesday, April 4, 2023 in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
The convention will take place August 19-22 next year and is expected to draw between 5,000 and 7,000 delegates and alternates and up to 50,000 visitors to Chicago.
Chicago, which had been one of the front-runners in hosting the 2024 convention for more than a year, last hosted a convention in 1996, when then-President Bill Clinton won reelection.
The city also hosted the infamous 1968 Democratic convention, which witnessed a brutal clash between police and protesters protesting the Vietnam War.
Chicago is all blue, and holding the convention in a pro-union city could demonstrate Biden’s strong support for organized workers, which could be critical to his chances of winning a second term in the White House.
The Republican National Committee announced last year that the GOP’s 2024 presidential nominating convention will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
While Illinois is a reliably blue state, Wisconsin is a crucial general election battlefield.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a longtime Democratic donor, was a key figure in landing the convention in Chicago. He repeatedly praised that the country’s third most populous city had the infrastructure, experience and financial resources to host a successful large-scale event such as a presidential nominating convention. And he reportedly guaranteed the convention’s financial success.
But Chicago has attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to its crime and high murder rate.
Commenting on news from the convention, National Republican Congressional Committee press secretary Will Reinert said, “Which is the bigger concern: sirens drowning out speeches or what items attendees should leave at home to make room for their body armor in their Suitcase?”
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Atlanta was seen as Chicago’s closest competitor, and Georgia — a once-red state that has turned into a crucial battleground for the Southeast general election — was one of the few swing states that narrowly bore Biden to win the White House . In addition, the election of the Democrats in the second round of the second round of the Senate in Georgia on January 5, 2021, gave the party the majority in the Senate.
But union leaders favored Chicago because of Georgia’s history of hostility to the labor movement, and many Democrats also questioned holding a convention in a state where the governor’s office and legislature are firmly in the hands of the GOP, and in a state where Republicans in recent years passed strict laws on access to abortion and relaxed restrictions on access to guns.
