All roads lead to Chicago

The ghosts of conventions past loom over the DNC.

The 1860 Republican convention in Chicago. (Harper’s Weekly illustration)

Welcome to the first of a week of dispatches from Chicago! To complement my coverage, I’ve opened up a live chat where the WUTP community can discuss the convention as it happens. My plan is to also do a live video call tonight, after President Biden’s speech, using Substack’s live video feature. I’ll send an email with instructions on how to access it — but, throughout the day, feel free to use the live chat to send in questions that I’ll be able to answer during the video call. See you tonight!

Over the course of America’s 248-year history, different states and cities have staked their claims on various facets of the country’s political system. Virginia, home to eight commanders-in-chief, is the “Mother of Presidents.” Indiana seems to be the go-state for No. 2s, having produced an impressive six of the 49 vice presidents. St. Louis, my hometown, has hosted more presidential debates than any other city. (Hello, WashU!)

But when it comes time to host a political convention, the bipartisan consensus seems to be to hop onto I-90 and head to Chicago.

In total, 25 nominating conventions have been held in Chicago (14 Republican, 11 Democratic), more than double the next-most frequented city (Baltimore, with 10). This week’s Democratic convention will be #26 for the “Windy City.”¹

Chicago conventions really run the gamut of American political history. Home-state hero Abraham Lincoln was nominated here in 1860, in a makeshift meeting hall called the “Wigwam” specifically constructed for the occasion. At the time, it was the largest indoor audience ever assembled in America.

When William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous “Cross of Gold” speech, he did so at the 1896 Democratic convention in Chicago. Warren Harding kicked off his “return to normalcy” campaign here in 1920, at the Republican confab that year. Both parties converged on Chicago in 1932, as Franklin Roosevelt (the first candidate to accept a presidential nomination in-person) promised “a New Deal for the American people” while Republicans stayed the course with Herbert Hoover.

And let us not forget the Democratic convention of 1996, also a Chicago production, when Bill and Hillary Clinton led the Democratic Party in a rousing chorus of “Macarena,” one of the cringier moments in convention history.²

Of course, no Chicago convention looms quite so large as the 1968 DNC, which was held amid the Vietnam War and in the months following the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy (do we have to say Sr. now?) 10,000 protesters descended on the city, facing “enough wild club swinging, enough cries of hatred, enough gratuitous beating” from law enforcement for a Johnson administration report to term the response a “police riot.”

Since then, Chicago has taken on a life of its own in America’s political imagination, one of the cities most often used by Republicans to bash Democratic governance and promote their “law and order” chops. As recently as 2016, Donald Trump was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago after violent clashes between protesters and supporters. Three years later, as president, Trump used a visit to Chicago to slam the city’s crime rate. “It’s embarrassing to us as a nation,” he said then. “All over the world they’re talking about Chicago. Afghanistan is a safe place by comparison.”

This year, the chaos of 1968 — and the subsequent victory of Richard Nixon, the first candidate to ride a “law and order” message to the White House — represents everything that Democrats are hoping to avoid. Activists have said that at least 20,000 demonstrators will participate in a march outside the convention hall today, protesting Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza.

Chicago officials are promising a very different response than 1968 — “I’ll do everything in my power to protect the right to assemble in protest,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told the Associated Press — but the question of Kamala Harris’ Israel policy is one of the few that threatens to divide the newly unified Democratic Party, even if it does not do so violently.

After all, potential protests aside, Harris is heading into the DNC on an upswing. According to the VoteHub polling averages, the vice president now boasts slim leads nationally, as well as in the crucial swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and even Arizona, a stark turnaround from the days (about a month ago) when Joe Biden was trailing in all of them. Trump, meanwhile, leads in Georgia and Nevada, while the Democrats’ long-sought prize of North Carolina is an even tie.

Harris also has energy on her side, lately filling stadium crowds larger than any Biden received during his moribund re-election effort. “You know how bad Chicago is going to be?” the famed Democratic operative James Carville asked last month, before Biden had dropped out. “We are going to sit shiva for four days.” No longer.

Still, as The New York Times put it this morning, Harris’ campaign so far has been “heavy on buzz, light on policy,” lacking even a policy section on its website. The 91-page Democratic platform, released last night and set to be approved today at the convention, does little to fill in the blanks, repeatedly pledging to “finish the job” and mentioning Harris a mere 32 times — compared to 287 mentions for Biden.

The document reads as though it was written to accompany a Biden nomination, which, of course, it was — just as the entire convention was originally slated to coronate Biden, before being hastily reimagined to accommodate a new campaign.

That awkward, and historically unique, handoff will be crystallized tonight, when Biden addresses the convention in primetime. His presidential swan song, it will be a key opportunity to try to cement his one-term legacy as president — while also pitching Harris as his natural successor. Harris will be in attendance, presumably fondly applauding her boss.

After his opening-night speech, Biden is scheduled to leave Chicago, skipping the rest of the convention to spend the week on vacation in Santa Ynez, California. It’s Harris’ party now.

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More news to know

• How the GOP is celebrating Biden Night at the DNC… CNN: GOP-led committees release Biden impeachment report without formally recommending the House move forward with impeachment

• Remember him? CBS: George Santos expected to plead guilty in federal fraud case in New York

• Axios: Hamas rejects new U.S. proposal for Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal

• WaPo: Secret Service finds protecting Trump is extraordinarily challenging

• Politico: Trump’s ‘nuclear explosion’ on Kemp was months in the making. He could pay a price in November.

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The day ahead

• President Biden is set to address the Democratic National Convention in Chicago at 10:50 p.m. ET, with Vice President Harris and Governor Tim Walz in attendance.

• Former President Trump will hold a campaign event at 3 p.m. ET in Steelton, Pennsylvania. Sen. JD Vance has no events scheduled.

• The House and Senate are on recess.

1. A nickname, I might add, that has nothing to do with weather and everything to do with politics — and more specifically with political conventions! The earliest documented uses of the nickname were by Cincinnati politicians in the 1870s, as they competed with Chicago for the honor of hosting the 1880 Republican convention. The Chicago politicians, their Cincinatti rivals posited, were too corrupt to deliver on what they were promising — in other words, “windbags” full of hot air. The nickname stuck, but guess which city won the 1880 RNC? America’s convention capital, Chicago.

2. Will it be topped by Kamala Harris and Tim Walz attempting to lead the convention hall in “Brat” by Charli XCX? Tune in to find out.