Reflections from the 2024 DNC

28 thoughts from the week in Chicago

Isaac Saul | Tangle News

I’m Isaac Saul, and I’m the executive editor at Tangle where I write an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.” For more pieces like this one, subscribe to Tangle here!

I spent this week at the Democratic National Convention.

This was my first convention of any kind. I’ve been reporting on politics for a decade, and I’ve covered a lot of major political events in person, but the party convention was genuinely unlike anything I’d ever been to before. Aside from literally walking the halls of Congress, you just won’t find this concentration of high-profile politicians all in one place anywhere else. In fact, the star power at the convention was on an even larger scale than Congress: Governors were in attendance, along with mayors, big-name talking heads, celebrities, and influencers. One second I was listening to Bill Clinton speak, the next moment John Legend was performing and Oprah Winfrey was firing up the audience.

I’ve been keeping notes on all the things I’ve noticed, big and small. Today, with the convention over, I’m emptying my notebook.

Twenty Eight Thoughts on the Convention

1. The entire convention is very different in person than it is on social media or TV. For one, I’d see people say the arena was empty when it was packed, or say there was a major disruption inside that I didn’t even notice. It was legitimately disorienting to experience it this way. Similarly, the pro-Palestinian protests were all over social media but easy to miss in person. The entire week I was in Chicago, I saw one single group of protesters — about 20 people holding a banner calling for a ceasefire and reading out names of the dead. That was it. All the images of chaos and fighting with police that dominated the news did not actually interrupt the convention in any meaningful way. Also, the convention program is highly choreographed, with signs handed out at select times, instructions given to cheerleading fans, and teleprompters everywhere you look. But on TV it looks far more spontaneous.
2. Democrats are intentionally leaning into patriotism and reclaiming the word “freedom.” Eight years ago, if I told you about a rally with chants of “USA!” breaking out every few minutes and “freedom” as a theme, you would have thought I was talking about a Trump rally. But nearly every speaker leaned into the themes of patriotism and freedom over and over throughout the week. It is a very clear pivot the Harris campaign has made since taking over the ticket. I’m not the only one who noticed.
3. Far and away the most compelling speech this week was Michelle Obama’s on Tuesday night. It was, frankly, one of the most effective political speeches I’ve ever heard. It was so effective that she’s even been widely praised by conservative pundits all week, some of whom were warning their colleagues not to underestimate how potent it was. It’s hard to say exactly why it was so effective or how she managed to win praise from across the aisle, but she did. There was no policy — just lines drawn between what she thought Democrats stood for and what she thought Trump stood for. Every other speech (including her husband’s, which came immediately after) just felt as if it didn’t have nearly the same juice.
4. Speaking of a lack of policy: Programming consistently avoided policy, focusing instead on defining Harris and Walz as people, not as executives. The DNC literally gave primetime speaking spots to one of Harris’s childhood friends and then to Walz’s former neighbor from Minnesota. These people were speaking after former presidents and sitting senators — telling stories about small favors they did for each other or sharing (rather uninteresting) family anecdotes.
5. Another thing I haven’t heard much about is the fact Harris could be the first woman to become president. I’m fascinated by the decision to downplay this angle. In 2016, many speeches centered on Hillary Clinton breaking the glass ceiling. For Kamala, I can’t think of a single speech that centered the historic nature of her candidacy (other than Hillary’s, ironically). There were more references to Trump cheating on his wife than Harris becoming the first female president.
6. Monday felt acutely like a swan song for Biden. Individuals in attendance shed tears, placed their hands over their mouths, and many screamed out how much they loved him (I joked to Jon that dropping out was the most unambiguously popular thing he’s ever done). Biden and his family looked to me like a group that had just survived a kind of trauma and were striving to find their way together.
7. A funny little drama was playing out here between content creators and traditional journalists. The DNC rolled out the blue carpet for content creators and influencers, who received private lounges, free food and booze, and loads of access to big-name politicians. Reporters, meanwhile, were stuffed into nosebleed seats, left fighting for credentials, and battled shoddy internet and poor access to politicians. Strategically, I think this is smart: The DNC knows it’ll get friendlier coverage and reach younger voters by leaning on the content creators. Ethically, I hate it — traditional reporters getting access for real interviews (rather than PR hits) promotes greater transparency and balanced reporting. Personally, I straddle the line between reporter and online content creator, so I did my best to enjoy the benefits of both.
8. I said something about this in a tweet on Monday. And apparently it really pissed off some of those content creators, who started making videos and tweeting angrily about me. Ironically, they all seemed to think I was a mainstream media journalist who was upset they were getting access, when in reality I was just reporting out something that to anyone in attendance was very obvious (and I was getting similar access they were; all I had to do was tell DNC organizers I had a YouTube channel). But now that I have their attention, let me say this: There is a reason the DNC is inviting you backstage and ensuring you can interview people they are keeping insulated from other reporters and creators like me, and it isn’t that you are truthsayers who do the job of reporting the news better than everyone else. It’s that they know you are fans who are going to give them adoring coverage and help advance their agendas.
9. Many conservatives attended! Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh (in disguise), Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, and Mike Lindell (in disguise) were all in attendance. And of the cable news channels, Fox News had by far the biggest media setup and presence.
10. I was on the floor about 20 feet away from Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s speech, which was pretty underwhelming. I think over time his shtick is going to connect less and less. In terms of aesthetics, Tim Walz oozes authenticity and kindness while Shapiro feels scripted and a little too manicured. The “Obama wannabe” criticisms about Shapiro resonate with me, and after seeing the different ways the two play to a larger public for a few weeks I think I understand why Harris picked Walz over Shapiro. I think she was smart to. Again: I’m only talking here about the showmanship of politics, not policy or legislative abilities, but showmanship is a huge part of winning elections when you aren’t an incumbent.
11. Speaking of showmanship: I saw Shapiro, Sen. Mark Kelly (AZ), and Gov. Roy Cooper (NC) all speak in primetime this week. I also saw Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (IL), and Gov. Andy Beshear (KY). Based on their speeches, how they interacted with the audience, how they were received and how they delivered their message, I think Harris obviously made the right choice with Walz.
12. For whatever it’s worth: By far the most effective part of Walz’s stump speech is when he discusses his issues with infertility and the miracle of his children. People in the audience literally wept when the now-viral moment with his son happened, and this part of the speech — pro-kid, stressing the freedom to keep the government out of personal family decisions, and claiming Republicans could threaten treatments like IVF — landed very well in the room.
13. JD Vance made a joke this week about Walz going to Chicago so he could finally serve in a “war zone.” I have to say, despite its issues, Chicago is a lovely city. I’ve been here a few times before, but I forgot how much I love it. Great food. Kind people. Beautiful waterfront and parks. Given how much news I consume, these are not the things I think of when I think about Chicago, but this week was a nice reminder about how distorting the more sensational press coverage can be.
14. Walz and Democrats keep attacking JD Vance for going to Yale. “Now, I grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people,” Walz said. “I had 24 kids in my high school class and none of them went to Yale.” I really do not like this attack line at all. Is the point that Vance is somehow less American, or his rural “credentials” are less valid, because he is a smart guy who rose out of poverty and went to an Ivy League school? This strikes me as a really dumb, ugly, and self-defeating attack line. I don’t know who it’s for. Vance’s story is a powerful and remarkable one that deserves celebration.
15. The difference between the undercard speakers and the big-name, primetime ones is vast. It’s yet another reminder how much of politics is oratory, and how important good public speaking is to rising through the ranks. Most viewers only see the primetime addresses, but each night featured 3–4 hours of speeches from Democrats of all different stripes and stations, many of which were snoozers.
16. Keep an eye on Maryland Gov. Wes Moore. After seeing him in the convention center, watching his speech live and listening closely to the way people talk about him, it seems this guy has his eye on the White House. I think he’ll be running for president in the next four to 12 years.
17. I spoke to North Carolina Rep. Wiley Nickel, and he’s focused on the idea that Democrats should go all-in on winning North Carolina, which would completely open up the Electoral College map for them. It seems the party is listening. Harris has visited the state 16 times during her vice presidency, and her Tar Heel State poll numbers are looking better by the day. It’s an interesting strategy: Basically, North Carolina is Harris’s insurance policy if she doesn’t hold the entire blue wall of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. If she flips North Carolina and holds Pennsylvania, she only has to win one of Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, or Arizona to win the race. And if she gets North Carolina and Nevada, that gives Harris a path to winning without even needing Pennsylvania.
18. President Obama had some very Tangle-esque messaging about communicating across the aisle and giving grace to your political opponents. He suggested treating people who we disagree with the same way we might respond when a family member we love says something that makes us cringe. I appreciated this message, as well as the five or six minutes of his speech that he dedicated to how we can better reach across the aisle. Unfortunately, in the same speech, he made a very not-subtle joke about Trump having insecurities about his penis size, so of course now that now overshadows all his other statements.
19. Democrats are leaning back into the Clinton-era law-and-order vibes; they constantly touted Harris’s record as a prosecutor, trotted out in-uniform officers to give speeches on the final night, and did a complete 180 in their party platform to ramp up funding for police. There was even a moment in Harris’s introduction video when a Republican prosecutor from California said Harris was the person “who built the foundation for how we do criminal justice in America today” — an absurd overstatement and something that no Democrat would have wanted within touching distance of them just a few years ago.
20. Harris’s speech was kind of a Rorschach test. I follow a diverse set of thinkers on X, and reading their responses in real time was fascinating. The liberals I follow were over the moon, thinking she hit a home run and delivered a powerful, down-to-earth speech where she defined herself to the public as a joyful fighter. The moderates I follow said it was a solid speech that did exactly what it had to — a win for Harris. The conservatives I follow said she looked nervous, sounded out of touch, and that the whole thing would remind voters how unlikable she is. As someone who watched nearly every single address from the week, I thought Harris’s was in the top 8 in terms of effectiveness and delivery. I think she did a good job. In the words of conservative radio host Erick Erickson, “Easy to take digs, but her speech is more disciplined so far than how [Trump’s] wound up going. She’s taking an opportunity he missed.”
21. It’s always hard to be objective about these speeches, but one way to judge them a little more objectively is to look at focus groups and money raised. In Allentown, PA, a CNN focus group of eight undecided voters watched Harris’s speech and then graded it. Three gave her an A, three gave her a B+, one gave a B, and one gave a C. 7 of the 8 voters are now decided: They said they would be voting for Harris. Democrats were also raising millions on ActBlue in the hours after the speech. So, if you don’t trust me that it was a good speech, those are some metrics to go by.
22. Something remarkable happened in the middle of the DNC last night: Donald Trump posted about Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, whom he has spent the last few weeks attacking (along with his wife): “Thank you to @BrianKempGA for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country. I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” It’s hard to overstate how rare this kind of reversal is from Trump, and it makes me think that the internal polling his team has in Georgia must be pretty alarming.
23. When you’re at an event like this, it’s easy to drink the kool-aid. It’s like watching a game in a sports bar with fans dedicated to a single team. Still, the energy was palpable, and being surrounded by all these Democratic activists, pundits, and politicians for the week made me wonder what the ceiling is for Democrats this year. An idea occurred to me: What if this is the first strong, energized, potent ticket Democrats have run since 2012? What if Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden actually ran pretty bad or mediocre campaigns, but had tight races because Trump is unpopular with moderates? What if, on top of the good polling, grassroots momentum, and fundraising, there are also hidden Harris voters? If that’s the case — if Harris-Walz can maintain Obama-like momentum — could they win in a blowout? Is it possible, maybe, that this race won’t be all that close after all?
24. Conversely, it’s quite possible we are smack dab in the middle of a friendly media cycle around an unproven, untested candidate who is bound to come back to earth in the coming weeks. In that case, we’re looking at another election that will be decided by tens of thousands of votes in a few swing states, many of which are states where Harris could end up being an underdog by Election Day.
25. I think Democrats should have let a Palestinian voice on stage during the week. There was a lot of space given to pro-Israel voices, and the moment between the audience and the parents of the American hostages being held in Gaza was incredibly powerful. But a pro-Democrat Palestinian would have been powerful, too. No convention speaker is going to go up there without having their remarks cleared, so why wouldn’t Democrats show they are a big-tent party by giving a few minutes to those voices, too? The RNC gave space to union bosses and Amber Rose — that’s what activating a big tent can look like. The omission didn’t make sense to me. Also, with a powerful uncommitted movement growing, I think it was political malpractice.
26. The best argument for not having a Palestinian or someone from the uncommitted movement speak is that this was an event to coronate the nominee. By definition, being uncommitted sort of disqualifies you from getting space in the room to go on stage. But still, I think it could have been a unifying moment for the party — and something to activate progressives and Muslim voters — to have ceded that small bit of ground.
27. Harris threaded the needle on the issue of Israel and Gaza about as well as she could have. Her remarks made it clear she would continue to function as a staunch ally of Israel, which is in line with most of the party. But she also spoke about the horrors being inflicted on Palestinians in a way that many other candidates have not.
28. The end of the DNC will probably mark the end of the honeymoon phase for Harris and Walz. Sometime next week, the vice grip of the press is going to close — new stories will be written, criticisms will mount, Harris will have to sit for an interview, and the scrutiny is going to get dialed up to 10. As we sit here today, I think Harris and Walz have successfully captured the momentum in this election and are now in the driver’s seat. You don’t need to take it from me — just look at the polling, the down-ballot races, the betting markets, and the fundraising battles. But there is a long way to go, and many more tests for Harris and Walz to pass.

Some other odds and ends

• I saw New York Times columnist Ezra Klein riding a CitiBike, which felt very on brand.
• Senators have an aura. I can’t quite explain it. When you see them, even if you don’t recognize them, you just know. They glow in a particular way.
• Our biggest obstacles in getting interviews were people not knowing who we are and not knowing if they could trust us.
• Some pro-Palestinian protesters were reading names of the dead in Gaza with megaphones, and several DNC attendees created some very bad optics by plugging their ears as they walked by. For whatever it’s worth, I also walked through the protests; and as bad as those videos looked, it was incredibly loud.
• Many people at the convention seemed to hate the traditional media nearly as much as conservatives do.
• Jon ran into Jon Favreau while going through the Secret Service checkpoint and commiserated with him about a ballpoint pen setting off a more advanced security check-up.
• The logistical issues were awful on Day 1, bad on Day 2, but resolved by Day 3.
• Every few speakers, organizers come sprinting through the convention center and hand out thousands of new signs — like “USA” signs or “Coach Walz” signs or whatever else. The signs are all speaker-dependent, and they were an interesting way to understand the optics that event organizers wanted to present.
• There were 15,000 members of the media in attendance. Fifteen thousand.
• On Day 1 of the convention, as we were approaching the center, an older black guy who lived around the corner from the United Center was screaming at attendees that he was voting for Donald Trump, as was the entire neighborhood, and that Harris and Democrats broadly did not represent him or his friends. It was a very interesting moment.
• Extremely expensive suites throughout the convention center were packed with big donors and power players, and they were impossible to get into. NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo called out this dynamic in a viral clip from the convention floor.
• I got to say hi to Saager Enjeti, who runs the podcast Breaking Points, which is one of my favorites out there. He is a classic example of a really kind, friendly person who is also a bitingly critical analyst.
• When Harris made a surprise appearance on night 1, it was the second loudest I’ve ever heard an arena get. #1 was when I was in the stands when Steph Curry broke the NBA scoring record at Madison Square Garden.
• My most-likely-to run-for-president-in-2028 list: Wes Moore, Josh Shapiro, Pete Buttigieg, and Gretchen Whitmer (in that order).
• I’m kind of surprised Bill Clinton still gets invited to this stuff. Not only has he been credibly accused of sexual assault, he is also a total wild card — he was the only speaker I saw who went off-prompter for multiple minutes and just improvised half his speech.
• I interviewed a member of Congress who accidentally walked away while wearing the lav mic I gave him. When I ran him down to get it back, he told me a great story about how Al Gore once accidentally wore a mic into a bathroom and everyone heard his business; ever since then, he had a fear of walking away with a mic on, and this was the first time he had actually done it.
• When Tim Walz said “never underestimate a public school teacher,” he got one of the biggest roars from the crowd that I heard all week.
• I don’t know who started the rumor that Beyoncé was attending, but I had multiple people at the DNC tell me it was true, and it even got reported by TMZ (who, despite their reputation, rarely gets those reports wrong). I’m not sure if something went south and they canceled it, but it really seemed like she was going to be there.
• Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is exceptionally tall. I couldn’t find any reliable source on his height (some listed him at 6’2”), but we walked past him, and he was much bigger than I thought he was. Jarringly tall.

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