WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats announced on Tuesday that they will hold their party’s 2024 national convention in Chicago, choosing the biggest liberal city in the Midwest as they try to keep the momentum going after a strong midterm election performance in the key battleground region.
Organizers from Chicago, Atlanta and New York spent months lobbying to be the site of the convention, but the final decision lay with President Joe Biden, who is expected to formally launch his reelection campaign in the coming weeks.
“Chicago is a great choice,” 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.”
The Democratic National Committee said its convention would be held Aug. 19-22 and noted that Illinois, along with Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, was part of the critical Midwestern “blue wall,” which was key to Democrats’ success in the 2020 and 2022 elections. That rosy language omits the fact that Michigan and Wisconsin narrowly broke for Donald Trump in 2016, helping the Republican win the White House.