Just adding to what Jeff and Phil wrote, President Biden’s decision to hold the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago is a little bit of a surprise, considering the central role that Georgia played in his wins over the past few years. What’s more Southern Democrats had been pushing Biden hard to pick Atlanta, arguing it would “cement his legacy.” Also keep in mind Biden wants to make Georgia the fourth state to vote in the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries, behind South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada, and ahead of Iowa.

Biden was the first Democrat to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992, and Democrats’ wins in the two Senate runoffs in January 2021 ensured that the party would have a nominal Senate majority, and Raphael Warnock’s win last November helped keep that majority.

But perhaps selecting Atlanta would have been too much of a contradiction of Biden’s previous remarks, calling a sweeping elections bill signed into law in Georgia “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” and “an atrocity.” Also, it’s not unthinkable that former president Donald Trump could be on trial just down the street from the Democratic convention site, facing charges of suborning election fraud. That’s a lot of political drama to put in one city at one time.

Patricia Murphy of the Atlanta Journal Constitution points out that when your state’s governor is a one-man Democratic party funding machine, your state has a serious leg up on the competition.

Of primary importance in Chicago’s convention bid as D.C. Democrats were making their decisions was the unusual assurance from Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker that he would personally cover any debts accrued by the DNC for a convention in his city, which is estimated to run as much as $100 million.

Can anyone really do that? Yes, especially since there are at least 10 billionaires in the Pritzker family, including the governor, thanks to its role in co-founding Hyatt Hotels. Writing a check for a simple political convention is, truly, not a problem.

Also, I suppose holding the convention in Chicago instead of Atlanta means the Democrats don’t have to give a good speaking slot to Stacey Abrams.