The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday announced that Chicago will play host to the party's 2024 national convention.

Organizers from Chicago, Atlanta and New York spent months lobbying to be the site of the convention, but the final decision lay with President Joe Biden, who is expected to formally launch his reelection campaign in the coming weeks.

“Chicago is a great choice to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention,” Biden said in a statement issued by the DNC. “Democrats will gather to showcase our historic progress including building an economy from the middle out and bottom up, not from the top down. From repairing our roads and bridges, to unleashing a manufacturing boom, and creating over 12.5 million new good-paying jobs, we’ve already delivered so much for hard working Americans – now it’s time to finish the job.”

The Democratic National Committee said its convention would be held Aug. 19-22 and noted that Illinois, along with Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, was part of the critical Midwestern “blue wall,” which was key to Democrats' success in the 2020 and 2022 elections. That rosy language omits the fact that Michigan and Wisconsin narrowly broke for Donald Trump in 2016, helping the Republican win the White House.

According to The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Chicago has hosted more political conventions than any other city dating back to 1832; the city has hosted 25 total, 11 for the Democrats and 14 Republican conventions.

Chicago is solidly Democratic, as is Illinois. But holding the party's presidential nominating gathering in such a pro-union city again demonstrates Biden's commitment to organized labor — which will be critical to his bid to win a second term in the White House.

"Chicago is a world-class city that looks like America and demonstrates the values of the Democratic Party,” said Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who won a closely watched race last week to represent the Windy City. “We are unmatched when it comes to hosting events of this scale. I look forward to working closely with the DNC to facilitate a spectacular convention that showcases Chicago's diverse culture, our beautiful lakefront, our renowned hospitality sector, and our best asset: our amazing people."

The move also could counter Republicans, who last summer decided to hold their 2024 convention in Milwaukee in another critical Midwestern battleground state, Wisconsin.

The DNC said that Chicago represents the party’s diversity and “formidable coalition” and that the Midwest will “showcase President Biden’s economic agenda” including spending on public works as part of a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure package that cleared Congress in 2021.

The 2020 Democratic convention was supposed to be held in Milwaukee but unfolded virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden delivered a speech accepting his party’s nomination that year at a nearly empty convention center in Wilmington, Delaware.

Chicago hosted the infamous 1968 Democratic convention, which is best remembered for a brutal clash between police and protesters opposing the Vietnam War. The last Democratic National Convention in the city was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton won a second term.

That Chicago beat out Atlanta was nonetheless a surprise given Georgia’s strategic importance as a swing state. Biden won Georgia two years ago, becoming the first Democrat to do so in a presidential election since Clinton in 1992, and his party now controls both of its Senate seats after wins that drew national attention the last two cycles.

Though Atlanta is as thoroughly Democratic as Chicago and New York, Georgia could very well be a major deciding factor in the 2024 presidential race in a way Illinois will not be.

Still, some top Democrats worried about Georgia's Republican-controlled Legislature and state laws discouraging union membership and LGBTQ rights. There were also concerns about Georgia’s relaxed firearms laws, especially given the rash of mass shootings around the country — despite gun violence being a persistent problem in Chicago.

But shunning Atlanta for the convention could ultimately serve as a double blow to Georgia, which may also eventually lose its early place in a new Democratic primary calendar.

Biden endorsed moving Georgia to the No. 4 position in a revamped Democratic primary calendar for 2024 — changes meant to better empower the party’s deeply diverse voter base than the old system, which led off with overwhelmingly white Iowa.

New York City and state are also deeply blue in presidential races. But choosing the city for the convention might have helped Democrats in other parts of the state, its advocates said. Those other parts include Long Island, where Republican gains in key congressional districts helped the party flip the House last year.

Supporters of Atlanta’s bid had argued that the city and the rest of Georgia could help lead a resurgence of Democrats in the South, which remains largely steadfastly Republican.