1. President Biden will be accepting the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago in August.
2. Biden will need to focus on engaging young voters in order to win reelection against former President Trump.
3. Democratic strongholds like Cook County will be critical for Biden’s reelection, and low voter turnout in Chicago could indicate potential issues in other swing-state cities.
In August, Chicago will be a significant location for President Joe Biden’s reelection bid as he plans to accept the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination in the city. However, the recent primary vote count in Chicago indicates that Biden will need to engage voters, particularly young voters, to compete against former President Donald Trump in a challenging reelection campaign.
Despite Chicago’s strong Democratic leaning, Biden can expect to win Cook County by a large margin in the upcoming election. In the 2020 election, Biden received over 1.7 million votes in Cook County compared to Trump’s roughly 558,000 votes. Last week, Biden was on the ballot in a noncompetitive race in Cook County and received approximately 427,000 votes.
The low voter turnout in the Chicago primaries may foreshadow issues that the Biden campaign will need to address in swing-state cities like Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Phoenix, where vote margins are crucial for Biden’s success. Top Democratic pollster Celinda Lake warned that while Illinois has a strong community infrastructure, there was a lack of enthusiasm in the recent election, which could be a sign for other cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.
Lake emphasized the importance of cities in generating voter turnout for Democrats to overcome the GOP’s advantage in rural areas. She stated that cities like Chicago need to act as engines of turnout for the Democratic party to succeed in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Georgia.