CHICAGO — Tickets, venues and hotel rooms are in demand, and energy is bubbling around the Democratic National Convention as Vice President Kamala Harris prepares to become the first black and Asian-American woman to officially accept the major party nomination.
Credentials are high. The volume and number of incidents is increasing. Some corporate clients send more people, while others extend the length of stay.
As Harris moved to the top of the Democratic ballot, new requests for access to the main event space at the United Center and the surrounding paddocks flooded in, people close to the convention and event planning said.
Chris Korge, the Democratic National Committee’s national finance chairman, who has worked in Democratic presidential politics for decades, said he fielded calls and texts of last-minute requests for input around the four-day convention that begins Aug. 19.
“A credential to get into the Chicago Democratic National Convention is a hotter ticket than a Taylor Swift concert,” Korge said. “We have to tell people there is a limit to how many people we can get into the convention.”
The demand around the convention reflects the momentum the party has experienced since President Joe Biden withdrew from the party’s nomination on July 21. Harris continues to gain momentum, having announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as his running mate on Tuesday. It has packed arenas for the past few weeks – a new phenomenon for the campaign. reported on Harris’s campaign raised an eye-watering $310 million That’s more than double the amount raised by former President Donald Trump’s campaign last month. in a week 360,000 people have registered Volunteering for Harris.
It’s all a marked change from the days and weeks after Biden’s devastating debate with Trump in late June. As fundraising for Biden as a whole began to slow, there was talk of canceling events around the convention, said Jaimey Sexton, a Chicago-based consultant with the Sexton Group, which booked or helped organize numerous events around the convention.
Now, he said, he’s struggling to find a suitable place to eat for a group of 20 people.
“Before you wake up; Now it’s going to be Mardi Gras,” Sexton said. “Normally, these things would have come together six weeks ago. But everybody was paralyzed; nobody had any money to do anything.”
Harris said demand has accelerated since Biden stepped into his role at the top of the Democratic ticket.
“Now it’s just a climb,” he said, to fulfill all the new desires.
To some extent, it’s typical for people to come out of the woodwork two weeks before the convention trying to get tickets, said a person close to convention planning. After Covid derailed live events in 2020, there was continued enthusiasm for holding the first true Democratic convention since 2016. The Chicago Host Committee closed its call for convention volunteers in late July after receiving 30,000 applications or interest forms. It surpassed its 12,000 goal in mid-July, before the candidate was replaced, a spokeswoman said.
Still, consultants, event planners, activists and representatives say they’ve seen a surge in interest since Harris took the helm. One event host specifically asked that it not be made public, fearing it would be beyond his means.
Greg Goldner, founder and managing partner of Resolute Public Affairs, said talks are already underway to exchange tickets for admission to the event.
Goldner said some of his corporate clients are sending more people for longer than expected, candidates running in November who plan to attend only a few days are extending their trips, and new entertainment and events are popping up.
Finding a hotel room is still possible — Chicago can host conventions of 100,000 people, and the convention is estimated to bring 50,000 people — but prices aren’t cheap, he said.
“The informal economy around access and who will be the best can trade,” Goldner said. “The centralized calendar is now a massive schedule that grows every day. … You start seeing a lot of new things that are going to be fun.”
Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, also a delegate, is among those bombarded with requests for help in obtaining convention credentials.
“The enthusiasm is off the charts right now. “We’re really feeling a lot of momentum going into this convention,” Mendoza said. .
Kim Walz, a longtime Democratic activist and onetime alderman candidate in Chicago, said the past few weeks have been transformative for her and others in the party.
“There’s so much disagreement, I just wanted to straighten things out – and I’m a pretty busy person. And I think a lot of people felt that way. Ignore the noise and maybe he’ll go away — but he didn’t, and he just got angrier and angrier,” said Walz (no relation to Tim Walz). “It changed for me. I have a new hope for the direction of our country and the world where my daughter will grow up.”
“I’m fired up,” he said. “You can feel the energy around this ticket.”