When Gov. JB Pritzker said he’d try to get the Democratic National Convention to come back to Chicago in 2028, he wasn’t exactly kidding.
“I’m with him,” Christy George, executive director of the Chicago DNC’s Host Committee, said in an interview with the Sun-Times on Tuesday. The host committee raised a record $94 million — making it the most expensive convention in history.
“We’re one of the very few cities that were able to raise the money, recruit the volunteers, raise millions more than what we planned on, and recruit thousands more volunteers than other host city or past political conventions has, Democrat or Republican,” George said. “We want that experience again, and we would happily, happily bid for it. So I’m with JB and I’m all for another convention here. We can do this. We can do it well.”
Pritzker on August 20 said he'd be up for back-to-back conventions. And another convention in Chicago would once again put the Democratic governor in the spotlight and help amplify whatever political future he chooses.
“I know there are local pressures, and they're going to say, ‘Oh, we're bidding on 2028, already,’ but it has happened,” Pritzker told Politico’s Jonathan Martin. “...Chicago's a great city to have a convention. I mean, I want to bring every convention I possibly can to the city of Chicago.”
As for that record fundraising haul, contributions made to the host committee won’t be made public until a required filing deadline in mid-October — and the committee, chaired by Michael Sacks, CEO of financial services firm GCM Grosvenor, isn’t constrained by donation limits or quarterly disclosure requirements.
George, who served as Pritzker’s first assistant deputy governor for budget and economy before being tapped to lead the host committee, wouldn’t confirm whether Pritzker contributed to the host committee — although the self-funding governor held several events to raise money for the host committee and has shown he has no limitations to political fundraising.
Just like the rest of the thousands of convention-goers, George is still recuperating from the early mornings and late nights. Even after the convention, she said, she's been waking up in a cold sweat, worried about whether she got “so and so” credentials.
That lingering angst is due in part to the uptick in credential requests after Vice President Kamala Harris became the top of the ticket. Having Harris as the nominee also helped spike fundraising, George said.
“I think we were relatively close to our internal fundraising goal at the time President Biden had decided that he did not want to continue running,” George said. “We definitely saw some additional energy once Kamala was announced as the presumptive nominee, and certainly that pushed us far over our goal. So definitely a surge of energy.”
A huge goal for convention organizers was to include all 77 Chicago neighborhoods, in contrast to selective beautification efforts made to the city the last time it hosted the DNC, in 1996. This year’s convention included minority vendors inside the United Center, Navy Pier and at various DNC events throughout the city. It also included beautification efforts on the South and West sides through a partnership with the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation, bus tours of the city for delegates and guests in partnership with Chicagoan Shermann “Dilla” Thomas and Sen. Tammy Duckworth and more than 1,600 hours of community service by volunteers.
“We had every single ZIP code in the city of Chicago,” George said of the DNC volunteers.
The host committee also donated 10,000 pounds of prepared food "rescued from event venues" that fed over 10,000 Chicagoans through faith-based organizations, she said.
Although the economic impact of the convention won’t be released until late October, officials estimate it will be in the $150 million to $200 million range.
And as for the rumor that Beyoncé would make an appearance, George said she fell for it, too.
“I was 100% fooled. I absolutely thought that she was coming, and I definitely wish she was there,” George said. “I'm a huge Beyoncé fan, so I was holding out until the very, very bitter end.”
