Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison will gavel-in the party’s national convention on Monday — the first political convention to be held in Chicago in 28 years.
Overall, the way to think about each day’s activities at the DNC is to divide it between days and nights. During the day, it’s time for business. At night, it’s time for showbusiness.
Regular business will mostly occur at McCormick Place, where delegates and other party officials will discuss and debate policy issues and agendas. Following delegation breakfasts at their respective hotels around Chicago, DNC constituency caucuses and councils plan to meet Monday through Thursday until about 3:15 p.m. Varying caucuses on Monday will discuss everything from issues affecting minority communities and LGBTQ+ rights to small business needs and the climate crisis.
But after that work is done, it’s time for the lights and action at the United Center. Convention programming should begin around 5:15 p.m. and will run until 10 p.m. sharp (to align with broadcast television schedules) each night of the four-day convention. Every day will have a theme and Monday’s is “For the People.” Democrats said the theme was designed in part to contrast with Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, who “puts himself first.”
Biden’s speaking tonight
Monday night’s headline speech from President Joe Biden represents the start of a baton pass to Vice President Kamala Harris. Both the president and first lady Jill Biden, who is also scheduled to speak Monday, will only be in town for one night.
The party’s energetic embrace of Harris’ candidacy underscores a bit of diverging themes for the Democrats as they begin their convention. While celebrating the start of the first in-person DNC in eight years following 2020’s pandemic-altered convention, they are also bidding a bittersweet farewell to Biden.
“The quick coalescing of Democrats around Harris’ candidacy and the energy it has generated has served another purpose — providing a cover of unity to overshadow some tensions and divisions within the ‘big tent’ party,” the Tribune’s Rick Pearson and Jeremy Gorner report.
During his speech Monday, Biden is expected to play up his policy victories while continuing to frame Trump as a threat to democracy.
Here come the protests
While convention work is happening at McCormick Place and the United Center, protests around Chicago will be happening and one of the biggest highlights one of the most prominent party divisions nationally — the war in Gaza. Thousands of protesters are expected to march through the streets of Chicago, calling for a ceasefire there.
After a monthslong fight in court, pro-Palestinian protesters on Friday won the right to have stages, sound equipment and a handful of portable bathrooms in Union Park, which was designated for speeches. The city is still prohibiting the use of media risers and canopy tents. Organizers decried “unreasonable restrictions” on the 1.1-mile route they have been cleared to march, the Tribune’s Karina Atkins reported Sunday. They wanted 2.4 miles.
On Sunday, others protests downtown pressed Harris and Walz to “commit to sweeping legislation for abortion access and transgender and LGBTQ+ health care, as well as an end to U.S. aid to Israel and a call for a cease-fire,” Trib’s Adriana Pérez reports.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, meanwhile, continue their march through the Midwest and key swing states. A bus tour ahead of their planned speeches Wednesday and Thursday included a swing through Pennsylvania on Sunday, making stops to speak with campaign volunteers and a high school football team.
So a few things have changed since you were last in town…
For conventioneers who haven’t been in Chicago since the last convention in 1996: Michael Jordan and Oprah are gone, Millennium Park is here and developers are in the midst of transforming the spaceship-looking-building that used to be Chicago’s main state of Illinois building at Clark on Randolph streets into Google’s new headquarters. A quiz for Chicagoans and visitors alike from the Tribune’s Robert McCoppin.
Another convention is coming to town in two years
A major goal of city leaders in hosting this year was to show off Chicago to tourists and event planners. Even before the DNC kicked off, the NAACP announced that Chicago would host its 117th national convention in 2026, the Tribune’s Robert Channick reports.
“As a city rooted in Black history and committed to carrying forward the values of the NAACP in all that we do, there is no better place than Chicago for this historic event,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a release.
Other speeches tonight
- Mayor Johnson takes the stage at the United Center Monday night to help roll out the welcome mat. Johnson, an early rider on the Harris bandwagon, is expected to talk about how he is the latest in a line of Black leaders that launched their careers from Chicago, including former President Barack Obama and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He’ll likely draw on his commonality with Walz, a former high school teacher, as well.
- Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — an Illinois native, the party’s unsuccessful nominee against Trump in 2016 and the first woman to lead a presidential ticket — is expected to take the stage Monday night, according to reports. Clinton has been blasting previous statements by Trump and his pick for vice president, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, on reproductive rights and foreign policy. She has also touted the potential for Harris to make history as the first female president, a topic Harris herself hasn’t touched on much.
Here’s what else is happening today
- Republicans will offer counterprogramming throughout the week of the DNC at Trump Tower. Monday’s topic is the economy, featuring Trump’s senior advisor Brian Hughes, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. That counterprogramming will coincide with Trump and Vance’s economic and energy event in New York.
- Amid rumors of his efforts to oust his schools CEO and continued negotiations with the teachers union, Johnson is slated to tour three schools with Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten this morning. On the agenda: Dyett High, Drake and Cameron Elementary schools, each representing “a different aspect of how the Sustainable Community Schools model addresses educational inequities.”
- U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi will address the DNC’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus during the day’s proceedings at McCormick Place. That session starts at 9:30. The AFT’s Weingarten will later address a meeting of the DNC’s Environmental and Climate Crisis Council. These meetings are open to the public both in person and on the DNC’s Youtube.
- Day two of the Progressive Democrats of America conference will feature a panel on organized labor that includes Davis Gates at 10:50 a.m. and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont at 3 p.m.
- A gun safety press conference and panel kicks off at noon at Carnivale Restaurant. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering are expected to attend.
- At 3 p.m., U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois will be interviewed by POLITICO Magazine Senior Writer Ankush Khardori at the CNN Politico Grill — a combination food and beverage stop and live event venue in United Center Lot C. Others at the Grill Monday: U.S. Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.
- Chicagoans may be used to the sight of Scabby the Rat outside labor protests. This week, convention attendees might spot mice instead: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will station two giant mice outside the United Center and McCormick Place all week to protest the National Institute of Health’s animal testing policy.