Editor’s note: With this column, longtime columnist and reader favorite Steve Chapman returns to the paper with an original piece for the Tribune that will run on the first Thursday of each month.
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Before it can pick a presidential nominee, a party has to pick a national convention site, and Democrats are angsting about theirs. Chicago is one of the finalists for 2024, along with New York and Atlanta. Ideally, the choice will provide more than a suitable arena, adequate hotel capacity and decent dining. It’s also supposed to offer a political payoff in the form of votes on Election Day.
Democratic Govs. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Tony Evers of Wisconsin, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Tim Walz of Minnesota endorsed Chicago in a letter to the Democratic National Committee that said, “The Midwest is utterly indispensable to the party’s success and should be the home of its 2024 convention.”
Former Alabama U.S. Sen. Doug Jones makes a similar pitch for Atlanta, located in another important swing state. “The Democratic Party’s future on a national level is tied to success in the South,” he contends. Leaders in New York, a sure thing for Democrats, can only note Manhattan’s many attractions and the state’s protection of abortion rights — in contrast with Georgia.
Republicans have set their gathering for Milwaukee, apparently believing it will help return Wisconsin to the GOP column after Donald Trump’s narrow defeat there the last time. “We’re going to put on such a show in 2024 at the RNC that the people of Wisconsin are going to be so hungry for fresh leadership in the White House that they are going to vote overwhelmingly for our Republican nominee,” former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch said.
Wisconsinites may deliver their electoral votes to the next Republican nominee, but if so, the convention site won’t be the reason. Biden won the state even though the main thing Democrats did for their 2020 Milwaukee convention was not show up: Due to the pandemic, delegates and members were told to stay home, with official business done remotely.
In 2020, Republicans chose Charlotte, North Carolina, only to back out because of the city’s COVID-19 restrictions. They switched to Jacksonville, Florida, but later reverted to Charlotte, only to settle for a largely virtual affair. Despite shorting both states, Trump carried them.
Chicago has many merits, but the chance that a Democratic convention here will generate a surge of goodwill in neighboring states is about as plausible as squid in Lake Superior. The term “FIB” in Wisconsin, applied to people from the Land of Lincoln, does not stand for Fabulous Illinois Brethren.
There is a long history of convention sites providing no visible benefit at the polls. Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania after accepting the 2016 nomination in Philadelphia, just as Barack Obama fell short in North Carolina in 2012 following a convention in Charlotte. The GOP assemblage in Tampa couldn’t deliver Florida for Mitt Romney in 2012. Republicans thronged to the Twin Cities in 2008, but John McCain lost Minnesota.
True, Trump won Ohio in 2016, having honored Cleveland with his party’s presence — but got an even bigger share of the vote in 2020, when Republicans stayed away. Democrats met in Boston in 2004, but John Kerry would have carried Massachusetts if the convention had been held in Jakarta.
The common assumption is that when a convention comes to town, it tilts the state’s and even the region’s voters toward the party staging it. But a lot of factors affect how people vote, and convention sites don’t figure prominently in anyone’s decision. It’s safe to assume that a year or two later, most Pennsylvanians couldn’t have told you where the 2016 Democratic convention was held. The same might even have held true by Election Day, more than three months after the delegates left Philadelphia.
Is it possible that, at the margin, a party helps itself in the state where its convention takes place? Sure. But it’s equally possible that it hurts, by motivating voters on the other side or annoying locals, some of whom resent the restaurant crowds, rubbernecking tourists and traffic snarls. Maybe holding the GOP convention in Milwaukee will give a small lift to the Republican nominee. Or maybe it will produce a modest backlash. And if voters in the host state would be inclined to reward the party for its site choice, wouldn’t voters in other states exact retribution?
It’s no wonder that cities and states vie to host conventions, which bring in lots of energized people with money to spend. But if the parties get anything in return on Election Day, it will probably be a harvest of ingratitude.
Steve Chapman was a member of the Tribune Editorial Board from 1981 to 2021. He can be reached at [email protected].
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