Chicago will host 2024 Democratic convention as party returns to Midwest

President Joe Biden and his party have selected Chicago to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, according to the Democratic National Committee, elevating a large liberal city in the heart of the Midwest, a critical battleground region.

The convention will be held Aug. 19-22 of next year at the United Center, the committee announced. Republicans plan to hold their 2024 national convention on July 15-18 in Milwaukee, just north of Chicago, underscoring the fierce competition for the Midwest headed into another presidential election.

In the final deliberations, Chicago beat out New York — another progressive city whose advocates had boasted of its infrastructure and fundraising resources — as well as Atlanta, in a presidential battleground state. Houston was eliminated earlier in the process.

If Biden becomes his party’s 2024 standard-bearer, as many Democrats expect, the Chicago gathering will be his first traditionally splashy nominating convention. The 2020 event, scheduled for Milwaukee, became an almost entirely virtual affair, after the coronavirus outbreak forced the cancellation of major in-person appearances.

“Chicago is a great choice to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention,” Biden said in a statement. “Democrats will gather to showcase our historic progress including building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, not from the top down.”

Chicago’s boosters argued that it was a bastion of Democratic Party values — a liberal place that embraces abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, and labor and civil rights — and that Illinois reflected the diversity of the nation. The state’s governor, J.B. Pritzker, a longtime Democratic donor, also made clear that the city — home to major party benefactors — had the financial resources, experience and infrastructure to run a smooth large-scale event. Those are important factors in a decision that is often shaped in large part by logistical considerations. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Pritzker was “among those making upfront guarantees” that “the party would lose no money if Chicago snagged the convention.”

In an interview last year, he also noted the city’s location in the politically competitive Midwest.

“We are surrounded by swing states here,” he said. “We have a very good relationship with Wisconsin, Michigan and all of the surrounding states that are important for the reelection of the president.”

Leaders from those states, including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, endorsed the city’s bid. And when Biden traveled to Wisconsin earlier this year, an ad in The Wisconsin State Journal read, “There is no path to the White House without the Midwest.”

“President Biden, let’s defend the blue wall. Choose Chicago,” read the ad, paid for by the Chicago Federation of Labor. “P.S. How about 81 degrees and a cool lakefront breeze?”

Biden informed Pritzker and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., about the selection of Chicago by phone Tuesday morning, said Natalie Edelstein, a spokesperson for the city’s bid and for Pritzker.

Opponents of Chicago noted that neither the city nor the state were politically competitive in presidential years, with some arguing that Democrats who supported the city were missing an opportunity to elevate a true presidential battleground in Georgia.

Atlanta was generally seen as Chicago’s closest competitor, and it had the support of some of Biden’s close allies across the South, including former Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama and Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina. And Georgia, a state with a rich civil rights history, is a meaningful place for Biden: It helped deliver him the presidency and played a crucial role in securing Democratic control of the Senate.

The issue of Georgia’s facilities, though, became a source of criticism. A number of union leaders who supported Chicago or New York argued that, given the importance of labor to the Democratic Party, its convention should not be held in a state that has often been hostile to labor, in a city with very few unionized hotels.

Some Democrats also questioned whether they should hold their convention in a state helmed by a prominent Republican governor, Brian Kemp, where abortion rights are strictly limited and gun access is not.

Still, a number Georgia advocates moved quickly to publicly congratulate their rival.

“While it is disappointing that we will not gather in Atlanta in 2024 you can count on southern Democrats to be there with bells and whistles on,” Jones, the former Alabama senator, wrote on Twitter.

Mayor Andre Dickens of Atlanta offered his congratulations in a statement while stressing that his city “represents the future of the Democratic Party.”

“Georgia is the battleground that will decide the 2024 election and Atlanta is the city that will deliver for Democrats up and down the ballot,” Dickens said, stressing the importance of investing in the state. “Even without the convention, Atlanta will fight to keep Georgia blue and expand the Democratic map in the South.”

In Illinois, Pritzker, who could one day seek the presidency himself, is perhaps the state’s dominant political figure. But the leadership of Chicago is in flux after the current mayor, Lori Lightfoot, lost her reelection bid amid voter concerns about crime. She had been prominently involved in the city’s bid.

Brandon Johnson, a progressive county commissioner with strong support from the Chicago Teachers Union, is set to succeed her in May. Johnson, whose victory electrified more left-leaning Democrats, has also stressed his enthusiasm for hosting the convention in Chicago.

But with a new national focus on Chicago, Republicans may be eager to highlight public safety challenges in the city as they seek to paint Democrats as insufficiently tough on law enforcement matters, or to dredge up the chaos of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.

Democrats have much preferred to emphasize the city’s 1996 convention, which is often remembered as a success, and a good experience for convention-goers.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.