Democrats announced Tuesday that they will hold their celebrations at the 2024 national convention in Chicago, choosing the largest liberal city in the Midwest as they try to maintain momentum after a strong midterm election performance in the key battleground region.

Organizers from Chicago, Atlanta and New York lobbied for months to get the convention site, but the final decision rested with President

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Biden, who is expected to formally launch his re-election campaign in the coming weeks.

Chicago is a good choice, Biden said in a statement. Democrats will come together to demonstrate our historic progress, including building an economy from the center and bottom up, not the top down.”

The Democratic National Committee said the convention would take place August 19-22, noting that Illinois, along with Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, were part of the critical blue wall in the Midwest that was key to the Democrats’ success in the 2020 and 2022 elections. That rosy language ignores the fact that Michigan and Wisconsin narrowly broke for Donald Trump in 2016, helping the Republican win the White House.

Chicago is solidly Democratic, as is Illinois. But holding the party’s presidential nomination rally in such a pro-union city demonstrates Biden’s commitment to organized labor. The move could also hold back Republicans, who are holding their 2024 convention in Milwaukee, located in another swinging Midwestern state, Wisconsin.

The DNC said Chicago represents party diversity and formidable coalition and that the Midwest will showcase President Biden’s economic agenda, including public works spending as part of a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure package approved by Congress in 2021.

The 2020 Democratic convention was scheduled to be held in Milwaukee, but took place virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic. Biden gave a speech accepting his party’s nomination that year at a nearly empty convention center in Wilmington, Del

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.

Chicago hosted the infamous 1968 Democratic convention, best remembered for a brutal clash between police and protesters opposing the Vietnam War. The city’s last Democratic National Convention was in 1996 when president

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Clinton won a second term.

Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker was a key lobbying voice for Chicago, promising on Tuesday that the convention would be a memorable one. He had pointed to the Democrats’ desire to extend their electoral gains in the Midwest, particularly in Michigan, where their party ran for governor and gained control of both chambers of the legislature during last fall’s midterms.

Chicago’s defeat of Atlanta was nevertheless a surprise, given Georgia’s strategic importance as a swing state. Biden won Georgia two years ago, becoming the first Democrat to do so in a presidential election since Clinton in 1992, and his party now controls both Senate seats after wins that drew national attention over the past two cycles.

While Atlanta is as Democratic as Chicago and New York, Georgia could very well be a major deciding factor in the 2024 presidential race in a way that Illinois will not be.

Still, some top Democrats were concerned about Georgia’s Republican-controlled legislature and state laws discouraging union membership and LGBTQ rights. There were also concerns about Georgia’s relaxed gun laws, especially given the outbreak of mass shootings across the country, despite gun violence being a persistent problem in Chicago.

But shunning Atlanta for the convention could end up being a double blow to Georgia, which could also end up losing its early spot in a new Democratic primary calendar.

Biden approved moving Georgia to No. 1. 4 position in a revamped 2024 Democratic primary calendar changes intended to better bolster the parties’ highly diverse voter base than the old system, which began with an overwhelmingly white Iowa.

But Republican state officials have objected to the Democrats holding a primary on a date that does not coincide with the GOPs’ 2024 primary.

As Biden prepares for an anticipated reelection campaign, he is already focused on the 2024 general election, rather than the primary, facing only token opposition from Democratic challengers Marianne Williamson, a spiritual advisor and author, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. activist.

New York City and the state are also deep blue in presidential races. But choosing the city for the convention might have helped Democrats in other parts of the state, proponents said. Those other parts include Long Island, where Republican gains in key congressional districts helped the party flip the house last year.

Supporters of Atlanta’s bid had argued that the city and the rest of Georgia could help lead a Democratic resurgence in the South, which remains largely steadfastly Republican.