Dem
51
GOP
49
When and if Joe Biden claims the 2024 Democratic nomination, he'll make it official in Chicago. Yesterday, the Democratic Party announced that the Windy City has been chosen as the site of its 2024 convention, beating out the other two finalists, New York City and Atlanta.
The Democrats have a fondness for that city when it comes to conventions. In fact, 2024 will make it an even dozen. Here's the full list (candidates who went on to win are in bold):
| Year | Nominee |
| 1864 | George McClellan |
| 1884 | Grover Cleveland |
| 1892 | Grover Cleveland |
| 1896 | William Jennings Bryan |
| 1932 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| 1940 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| 1944 | Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| 1952 | Adlai Stevenson |
| 1956 | Adlai Stevenson |
| 1968 | Humbert Humphrey |
| 1996 | Bill Clinton |
| 2024 | Joe Biden? |
As you can see, the blue team is 6-5 thus far with Chicago launches.
While a dozen conventions is quite a large number, however, the Democrats' affinity is actually outdistanced by the Republicans' love for Chicago conventions:
| Year | Nominee |
| 1860 | Abraham Lincoln |
| 1868 | Ulysses S. Grant |
| 1880 | James A. Garfield |
| 1884 | James G. Blaine |
| 1888 | Benjamin Harrison |
| 1904 | Theodore Roosevelt |
| 1908 | William Howard Taft |
| 1912 | William Howard Taft |
| 1916 | Charles Evans Hughes |
| 1920 | Warren G. Harding |
| 1932 | Herbert Hoover |
| 1944 | Thomas E. Dewey |
| 1952 | Dwight D. Eisenhower |
| 1960 | Richard Nixon |
That's 14 Chicago conventions for the GOP in total, thanks in large part to a remarkable five in a row in the early 20th century. The red team, as you can see, is 8-6 when launching from the city, though they haven't been there in more than 60 years. Overall, Chicago will have hosted 26 conventions in the 190 or so years that parties have been holding conventions. That means the city averages one convention roughly every other presidential cycle.
The lesson from this exercise is this: It's all good and well to hold conventions in a swing state (or a swing city), but the benefits are negligible at best. It's much more important to hold them in a city well suited to hosting a successful convention. Chicago has two major airports, plenty of hotel rooms, and plenty of the other amenities needed to accommodate 100,000 or so politicians, delegates, alternate delegates, reporters, alternate reporters, lobbyists, alternate lobbyists, activists, alternate activists, bloggers, alternate bloggers, vendors, alternate vendors, prostitutes, and alternate prostitutes. On top of that, it's pretty much in the center of the country, travel-wise. Delegates from, say, Los Angeles are going to be much more chipper if they don't have to get up at 3:00 a.m. and then endure a 6-hour flight on the first day of the convention.
The Republicans, having reached a similar conclusion, will hold their 2024 convention in Milwaukee. That's nominally a more swingy location than Illinois, but not really. First, it sure looks like Wisconsin is lost to the GOP (a.k.a. the anti-abortion party) for a while. Second, to the extent that conventions have an effect on voting patterns, it's local. And Milwaukee hasn't elected a Republican mayor since before the World War. And by that, we mean... the First World War. A hat tip to Gerhard A. Bading, who was actually a Republican-Democratic fusion candidate (to beat the Socialist Party), serving from 1912-16. (Z)