Democrats opened their national convention Monday celebrating President Joe Biden’s keynote address and their decision to move forward with Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee, while pro-Palestinian demonstrators amassed near the United Center to march against U.S. military support of Israel.
The convention’s opening, nearly a year and a half in the making, marked an anxious time for the city, its leaders and residents amid talk of random protests and disruptive behavior. But what organizers portrayed as the largest rally of the week, a march on the DNC, didn’t produce the tens of thousands of protesters they had predicted. It is uncertain what that will mean for the rest of the week.
The crowd, numbered in the thousands, started marching west on Washington Boulevard shortly before 3 p.m. after more than two hours of speeches in Union Park, which is a few blocks to the east. In one of the most notable incidents, a group of protesters forced open an outer perimeter security fence along Washington about two blocks north of the United Center. Law enforcement officials said personnel were immediately on the scene and contained the situation. At no point was the inner perimeter breached, the officials said.
Inside the convention arena, delegates tried to strike a balance between thanking the 81-year-old Biden for his four years as president and looking forward to promoting Harris, 59, as Democrats aim to retain the White House and prevent former Republican President Donald Trump, 78, from reclaiming it.
Jaime Harrison, the Democratic national chair, used social media to call Biden, also a former vice president and U.S. senator, “the most transformational president of my lifetime” and said delegates were “going to give him his flowers and thank him for his 50 years of selfless service to our nation.”
In doing a walkthrough of the United Center and convention stage prior to a speech in which he was expected to forcefully urge Democrats to move forward with Harris, Biden told reporters, “It’s a memorable moment.”
Asked about Trump’s claim that he was ousted from the ticket in what amounts to a coup, Biden said: “His stability is still in question.”
In an effort to demonstrate an opening round display of unity around the newly minted Democratic ticket of Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the party announced an array of speakers ranging from progressive U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, United Auto Workers President Sean Fain and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The appearance by Clinton, who was born in Chicago and grew up in northwest suburban Park Ridge, was a tribute to her 2016 unsuccessful bid for president against Trump. Clinton was the first woman to become a major party presidential nominee.
Delegates also honored the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. In addition to his civil rights work, Jackson unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1984 and 1988 — the first Black person to win a major party’s state primary or caucus, a feat unmatched until Barack Obama in 2008.
Clinton and Jackson’s role at the convention provided a foundation to salute Harris, the first Black and Asian American woman to win a major party nomination.
U.S. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, who nominated Biden for president at the pandemic-condensed 2020 convention in Milwaukee, said Biden ran for president “to restore the soul of our nation” and that “four years later, it’s worth our taking a few minutes to reflect on just how much progress” he and Harris have made.
“It’s important to look back for a moment and realize that when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came into office, they inherited one of the worst possible situations: public health, economics, democracy,” Coons told reporters earlier in the day.
“Joe Biden understood how to build coalitions, how to work across the aisle, how to deliver for the American people. And he and his trusted vice president, Kamala Harris, got passed, and he signed into law more consequential legislation than any president in my lifetime,” Coons said.
Setting the stage for Biden’s evening valedictory with first lady Jill Biden — the two arrived in Chicago in the afternoon and were set to fly to California for a vacation afterward — were speeches from Mayor Brandon Johnson welcoming the delegates to Chicago and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Illinois’ senior senator and the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. Durbin, who served with Biden in the Senate, met the president earlier Monday when he arrived in Chicago.
Johnson spoke to the city’s progressive political legacy as home of Jackson and Obama, who made Chicago his home as a community organizer and who is scheduled to address the convention Tuesday.
“Now Chicago — this city of hard work and caring people — is where Democrats will celebrate President Joe Biden, and nominate Kamala Harris for president of the United States of America,” Johnson said.
“As a Black man raising a little Black girl on the West Side of Chicago, I know that my daughter, Braedyn, will see not only a reflection of herself in the White House but she will experience the deepest part of American values,” he said, citing Harris’ historic candidacy.
“Together we can build a better, brighter future, and there’s no better place to start that than right here in the greatest freakin’ city in the world, the city of Chicago,” he said.
Durbin assailed the effect of Trump’s presidency on workers, saying “he wants a chance to make America unemployed again,” while under Biden and Harris “they recovered all those millions of jobs Trump watched slip away. They added over six million jobs on top of that — 16 million jobs in total, 16 million.”
“Donald Trump reminds us of a boss we’ve all had — the guy who thinks he’s ‘a very stable genius,’ but is driving the company into the ground,” the Illinois senator said.
Citing Ed Smith, the powerful late downstate union activist and former head of the Laborers International Union of North America who died in January, “there’s joy in this battle.”
“When we win, we help people buy their first home, send their kids to college and retire with dignity,” noting his background from a “strong union family” from Granite City. “That’s the American economy Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are fighting for. Let’s join that fight and build it together.”
U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, a third-term Democrat from Naperville, used her speech to criticize Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and promote the Democrats’ efforts to bolster health care coverage.
“He took the COVID crisis and turned it into a catastrophe. We can never let him be our president again,” Underwood, 37, a registered nurse and former Obama administration official, said of Trump.
“Four years ago, it was not safe to hold a convention like this. But tonight, thousands have gathered in this arena in my home state of Illinois to make sure Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States,” she said. “We have come so far these past four years and we’re not going back.”
The convention opening began with the morning hotel breakfasts of the state delegations — a traditional daily pep rally to try to build enthusiasm among delegates for the evening’s events.
In addition to addressing his home state delegation, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker also played the role of campaign surrogate. Pritzker shook hands and spoke with Walz while the Minnesota governor appeared before delegates from the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. Pritzker was on the short list of finalists as Harris’ running mate before she tapped Walz for the post.
Dozens of delegates in blazers and lanyards pulled their phones out to snap photos of the Democratic heavy hitters.
“Seventy-eight days. You can do anything for 78 days. We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” Walz said, echoing a line he used after being introduced by Harris as her running mate.
Walz told the delegates to think about “looking at your children, waking up on that sunny November morning and being able to smile and say, ‘My God, we elected a woman president.’”
Pritzker, after speaking to Illinois delegates at the downtown Royal Sonesta hotel, dodged reporters’ questions about his own political future with the governor’s office on the ballot in two years.
Pritzker said that serving out two terms would make him the state’s longest serving Democratic governor.
“I’m not suggesting that I want to try to beat Jim Thompson’s 14-year record,” Pritzker said, referencing the late Republican governor who served from 1977 to 1991. “My wife’s not here and I don’t want anybody talking to her about this stuff. But she is my term limit, so if all of you want to talk to her, convince her one way or another, by the way, you’re welcome to do that.”
Asked about a possible third term, Pritzker said, “I’m not thinking about any other terms other than the one I’m serving in.”
Republican supporters of Trump conducted their own counterprogramming efforts at Trump Tower downtown.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida repeated the attempts the former president has made to frame his Democratic opponent as a socialist while playing on voter concerns about inflation.
“Here’s a choice,” Scott said. “Donald Trump is a business guy who understands how businesses work. Harris has no idea how businesses work. The vice president pick (Walz) has no idea how businesses work. They’ve not built businesses.”
Flanked by signs highlighting what Republicans described as price increases during the Democratic administration in groceries, baby formula, meat and baking goods, Scott said he spent time as a child in public housing in Illinois and pointed to what he called high energy prices and the costs to business of Democrats’ regulatory policies.
“I want a free market, I want a bottom-up economy, I want capitalism. That’s what Trump stands for,” Scott said. “What Harris stands for is what Maduro and Chavez brought to Venezuela.”
Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Stevens, Jeremy Gorner, Sarah Freishtat, Alice Yin and Dan Petrella contributed.
