#Democrats choose Chicago as site of 2024 Democratic convention

The Democratic Party has chosen Chicago as the site of its 2024 convention.

President Joe Biden called Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to tell him about Chicago’s selection Tuesday morning before leaving for Ireland.

“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.”

The City of Big Shoulders last hosted a convention in 1996, when then-President Bill Clinton ran for re-election and Democrats helped make famous the “Macarena” dance.

“The last Chicago convention was a huge success. It makes sense to put the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 2024. Every facility where it will be located will be a union facility. Every hotel is a union hotel,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth told NBC News Thursday. “We are a state that guaranteed in multiple ways the right of women to have reproductive choice. And in fact, we are a beacon of hope and security for women’s health care from all of the states around us.”

Chicago was first viewed as a leading contender more than a year ago. But the DNC has a more troubled history in the city, when police brutality was on display at the 1968 Democratic convention. Thousands of Vietnam War protesters descended on the city in a wide-scale rebuke of the war. Police tear-gassed, dragged and beat demonstrators — images that were captured on television. That moment gave birth to a chant, “the whole world is watching,” signifying activism in the face of abusive authority.

The decision to choose Chicago came after deliberations and site visits from Democratic National Committee members. In recent months, the DNC viewed Chicago and Atlanta as the front-runners, with New York City remaining in the mix. 

Each city made aggressive pitches to DNC members, with Chicago and Atlanta each leaning on arguments that their regions — the Midwest and the South, respectively — will play pivotal roles in electing the next president. Organized labor had made a forceful argument for New York City.  

Inside the DNC, Chicago was viewed as the favorite because of the appeal of its venue — the United Center — and its stock of hotel suites and restaurants, as well as the political and financial force of Pritzker, whom DNC members believed would not allow the convention to fail. 

The election last week of a new mayor — Brandon Johnson, a 46-year-old Black progressive member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, who won despite being outspent in the race — further fueled momentum behind Chicago’s bid.

Johnson last week also personally pitched Biden on hosting the convention, and Pritzker had done the same in a previous conversation with the president.

“I do think that this changes the Chicago bid. You’ve just had this pro-teacher, pro-worker, pro-union person elected as mayor of Chicago,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told NBC News last week. “It sends a powerful message.”

Ultimately, however, the decision was up to Biden. The White House told the DNC of its wishes. The convention is expected to cost upward of $90 million, one of the sources with knowledge of the deliberations said.

Biden has had a special place in his heart for Georgia, a red state that flipped blue in 2020, helping usher the president into the White House. 

“Democratic turnout in the state of Georgia is the single greatest reason that you and Vice President Harris are in the White House today instead of Donald Trump,” a band of Southern officials wrote as part of their argument to hold the convention in Atlanta.

Republicans are holding their 2024 convention in Milwaukee.

Natasha Korecki

Natasha Korecki is a senior national political reporter for NBC News.

Carol E. Lee and Monica Alba contributed.