The 2024 Democratic National Convention begins today in Chicago, Illinois. During the four days of the Democratic convention, the party's presidential and vice-presidential candidates will be officially confirmed, and the party's program for the upcoming presidential elections will be voted on. The party's national convention is an opportunity for national delegates and party leaders to gather, “close ranks” around the new candidate for president of the USA, and to prepare for a hot political autumn.
This year's party convention is unique in many ways. For the first time, a major political party in the United States will nominate a black woman, current Vice President Kamala Harris, as its presidential candidate. She is an unexpected candidate of the Democratic Party in the presidential elections because until last month the candidate was the current president, Joe Biden. Biden began his re-election campaign in April 2023, when he confirmed that he would run for a new term with Vice President Harris. In the party primaries that took place from February to June this year, Biden won almost 14.5 million votes, and won all the individual primaries, except for the federal territory of American Samoa. However, after a disastrous performance in the presidential debate against Donald Trump, in which he appeared lost several times, and under pressure from party leaders and donors, Biden decided to withdraw from the presidential race and support Vice President Kamala Harris.
The party leaders did not think too much, and in just a few days gathered around the new candidate, supporting her almost unanimously. Donors also showed their support, as her campaign collected a record 81 million dollars in the first 24 hours, and 310 million dollars in the first ten days, most of which were small-dollar donations, donated by the voters. In early August, Harris chose Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota and former member of the House of Representatives, as her vice-presidential candidate. To avoid the legal problems of switching candidates in Ohio, the Democrats decided to hold a virtual nomination of candidates for president and vice president, so that they will only be ceremonially re-voted at the party convention.
This year's Democratic National Convention is not the first time Chicago has hosted such an event. On the contrary, this city is one of the most popular places for holding party conventions, because they have been held in Chicago 25 times, 14 of which were Republican conventions, and 11 were Democratic conventions. The most interesting convention was that of the Democratic Party, which took place in 1968, another historic year for American politics. That party convention is in many ways similar to this year's. In March of that year, President Lyndon Johnson also decided to withdraw from the race for a new term, prompted by weak re-election prospects and pressure from party leaders. At the party convention, the then-vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was also elected as the party's candidate. The difference between that year's convention and this year's is that the party's candidate for president this time is known in advance, so that the so-called open convention is avoided, in which the candidate is decided on the convention floor, leading to further polarization within the party.
What also marked the 1968 Democratic Convention, as well as the entire presidential campaign, were mass protests against the war in Vietnam. Tens of thousands of demonstrators protested the whole week in the streets of Chicago, demanding an end to the war in Vietnam. The city government decided to respond to the protests with force, sending not only the police but also units of the National Guard. The climax came near the end of the National Convention when the police dispersed the protesters by force, injuring more than a hundred policemen and as many civilians. The entire event was broadcast live by television stations covering the convention. A group of activists, known as the Chicago Seven, also ended up in court on charges of inciting riots. The event has become part of popular culture, as several documentaries and feature films have been made about the protests and subsequent trials, the most famous of which is the feature film The Trial of the Chicago 7 from 2020, which was nominated for six Oscars.
This year's presidential campaign was also marked by mass protests across the United States, against American support for Israel in the war with Hamas in Palestine. The peak of the demonstrations took place in April of this year when the protests spread to university campuses in almost all US states. The protest movements also had an impact on the results of the primaries in the Democratic Party, because pro-Palestinian activists, disappointed with Biden's support for Israel, launched a campaign in which they called on voters to vote "Uncommitted" in the elections. The biggest blow to Biden's campaign came in the state of Michigan, which has the largest population of Arab origin. More than 100,000 voters voted "Uncommitted", which makes up 13.21% of the total votes cast in the Michigan primaries. At the end of the primaries, a total of 36 delegates were in favor of the option of undecided voters. Although this number is only a drop in the ocean of the total number of delegates of the Democratic Party to the National Convention (which is more than 4,000), the Uncommitted campaign sent a strong message of discontent among the members of the Democratic Party.
The change in the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party did not change the advocacy of the pro-Palestinian activists. Protesters tried to disrupt Kamala Harris' party rallies in Michigan, Arizona, and at a rally in Maryland, where Biden and Harris appeared together. The organizers of the Democratic Convention expect tens of thousands of protesters on the streets of Chicago from more than two hundred pro-Palestinian civil associations. Cook County, located in the suburbs of Chicago, known as Little Palestine, is home to the largest population group of Palestinian descent in the United States. Numerous residents of this district also joined activist groups and announced their arrival at protests during the DNC. Activists intend to put pressure on the leaders of the Democratic Party to include in the party platform a request for an immediate end to the conflict in Gaza, to stop the supply of weapons to Israel, and to call for the removal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The 1968 Vietnam War protests deeply polarized the Democratic Party, and Vice President Humphrey's late entry into the presidential race further weakened his electoral prospects, causing him to lose the race to Richard Nixon. This year, party leaders quickly rallied around Vice President Harris, and the pro-Palestinian protests did not shake the Democrats as much. Nevertheless, they sent a strong message to DNC leaders that a large number of voters are unhappy with the Middle East policies of the Biden-Harris administration. The streets of Chicago are not expected to have violent protests this year, as there were back in 1968, but Democrats should not ignore pro-Palestinian activists, as they have a significant role in the Democratic Party in Michigan and Wisconsin, which are key states that can bring victory to elections in November.
Republican candidate Richard Nixon was leading in the 1968 election polls, and eventually won, although in the final weeks of the campaign, Hubert Humphrey narrowed the gap considerably. Throughout 2024, the Republican candidate Donald Trump led in the pre-election polls, against the current president, Joe Biden. However, after Biden's withdrawal from the campaign, Kamala Harris entered the campaign enthusiastically, catching up with Donald Trump in national polls and in most key states. Whether the history of 1968 will repeat itself, both on the streets of Chicago and in the results of the presidential election, remains to be seen.
