ATLANTA ( Associated Press) — Atlanta is submitting a formal bid to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Mayor Andre Dickens announced Friday for Democrats to hold their annual state party dinner.
“We are going to do everything in our power to bring the 2024 Democratic National Convention to Atlanta, Georgia,” Dickens told the party, which had gathered at a downtown hotel.
It could be another step toward the center of American politics for Georgia, when Democrats stunned President Joe Biden in 2020 by casting Georgia’s electoral vote and giving Democrats control of the Senate. Shocked Republicans by choosing Raphael Warnock and John Osoff. Warnock’s bid for re-election and Democrat Stacey Abrams’ second run for governor is already one of the highest-profile races of the 2022 election cycle.
In addition, Georgia is one of more than a dozen states where state Democrats have asked to step to the front of the party’s presidential nomination calendar, displacing the traditional position held by the Iowa caucus.
Georgia’s swing-state status may aid in its bid for convention, with national parties sometimes expected to use their gathering as a showcase to appeal to the voters of the host state.
Atlanta has hosted only one previous presidential nomination convention, the July 1988 Democratic Assembly in which Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis was nominated for president and Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentson for vice president. Dukakis lost that election to George Bush. That event was held at the now-demolished Omni Arena downtown.
Democrats began their search process last year by inquiring about 20 places of interest and narrowed it down to a list of eight cities. Others that have been publicly named include Chicago and Houston.
Republicans are deciding between Milwaukee and Nashville, Tennessee as their 2024 convention venue.
The gathering fills the hotel with thousands of visitors, but also brings with it a heavy security presence.
Dickens and party president Nikema Williams, who is also a member of Congress, made the announcement after playing a video showing the “good trouble” slogans used by the late US Representative John Lewis to describe their civil rights and political activities. was shown.
“You know, they say that Atlanta affects everything,” Williams told the crowd, purging an often-used phrase to describe Atlanta’s paramount place in African American and wider American culture.
