The 2024 Democratic National Convention, one of the most pivotal moments of this election, is here and CNN is providing comprehensive coverage across every platform for the historic week in and out of Chicago. Programming such as CNN This Morning to The Lead with Jake Tapper will go live from inside the convention, followed by special editions of CNN Newsroom with Jessica Dean, Erin Burnett OutFront, Anderson Cooper 360, The Source with Kaitlan Collins, NewsNight with Abby Phillip and Laura Coates Live. On the digital front, CNN is providing expansive offerings, with rolling live story updates, instant analysis around major storylines and vertical video capturing key moments, analysis and feeds from reporters on the ground.
To bring you further insights, we talked with Chief National Affairs Correspondent Jeff Zeleny and Senior White House Correspondent MJ Lee to give you insider access to what’s going on as they report live from the convention.
How do you prepare for the event?
MJ Lee: My work preparations for covering the DNC next week have not been too different from how I would typically get ready to cover any other significant news event – which means getting read in, calling sources, and generally just trying to gather as much information as possible about what we might expect to see next week.
Ideally, by the time I step onto our flight from DC to Chicago on Sunday, I will have a pretty decent roadmap of the major speakers and storylines for each day of the convention, so that I can try to be in a good spot in terms of reporting targets. And because I expect there to be a lot of running around and very little downtime next week, the more reporting I can get done ahead of time this week and over the weekend, the better I’ll feel!
Aside from the editorial preparations, I’m trying to make preparations at home, too. Five nights is a long time for me to be away from work these days. I’ll be doing literally anything and everything at home that I can think of to try to lighten the load a bit for my husband, who will be solo with our two kids while also covering the convention himself.
Jeff Zeleny: Before President Biden stepped aside and decided against seeking a second term, I was going through old lists of Democratic state officials to determine who were supportive of him and who had questions about his viability. That’s out the window now! It’s a far different moment than we imagined only weeks ago.
The party looks and feels almost entirely united behind Vice President Harris, so it makes preparing for the convention a bit different. I still have been reaching out to officials from the top seven battleground states and try making connections with as many as possible at the convention for interviews or source building.
Virtually every aspect of the convention has been transformed around Harris, instead of Biden, which will be one of the central themes of the week. While Democrats bristled at the notion they were rushing to coronate Harris in the days after Biden’s announcement, there will be no hesitation to celebrate her historic candidacy in Chicago. It will be a true Democratic celebration, even though the hardest work of the campaign is yet to come.
What do you look forward to the most?
MJ Lee: The last time I attended a convention was back in 2016, when I was covering Hillary Clinton. Four years after that, I was covering Joe Biden, but of course Democratic convention in 2020 turned mostly virtual because of the pandemic. So while there is a lot I am looking forward to about Chicago next week, I am genuinely excited to witness and experience this huge political gathering for the first time in almost a decade.
One thing I remember quite vividly from covering the DNC in 2016 eight years ago is watching and speaking to the delegates on the floor in Philadelphia. I went back and pulled up some of my old bylines -- like this joint piece with the great Stephen Collinson! – and it was quite a trip reading back on some of those interviews.
I quoted Rebecca Wininger, a 49-year-old Clinton delegate from Arizona, in that story. She was described as having “tears streaming down her face as the convention floor erupted with applause when Clinton formally went over the top and secured the necessary delegates to become the nominee.”
“We made history today by nominating the first woman for president. To be part of that moment was inspiring, overwhelming,” Wininger said.
It was a welcome reminder for me that next week will be one of those events where we shouldn’t lose sight of the sheer “history is unfolding before our eyes” nature of the moment, even as we strive to cover well the pure political storylines throughout the week, too. I am grateful for the opportunity to have a front row to history next week.
Jeff Zeleny: Whether covering the Republican or the Democratic convention, many of the patriotic rituals and pageantry are similar. It’s always fun to watch the red, white and blue spectacle on the convention floor and to see the delegates come to life with pure excitement. This year will have an added sense of history, another piece of a path that started in 2008, with the nomination of Barack Obama, and 2016, with the nomination of Hillary Clinton. Both of those moments provide a sweeping backdrop of context and history for our audience.
What do you think viewers should expect this year?
MJ Lee: The sitting president of the United States abruptly ended his re-election campaign several months out from Election Day and his vice president locked up the party’s nomination days later. So next week, the person that will formally receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for president is not the person it was supposed to be just weeks ago!
The sudden transformation of the Democratic convention – from one that was supposed to celebrate Joe Biden as the nominee to one that will formalize Kamala Harris’ nomination for president, instead – will be an outsized theme. In so many ways big and small, we expect the programming to be different now because it is now Harris, not Biden, at the top of the ticket – from the entertainers to the speakers to the themes featured at the convention.
There has been a serious burst of energy and enthusiasm across the Democratic Party since the president dropped out, as our reporting has shown and has been quite obvious in many ways. These political conventions are always meant to be celebratory, but I suspect that mood of jubilation post-Biden’s exit will really shine through next week.
And as a White House reporter, I am personally very interested to see how, exactly, Biden executes the formal passing of the torch to his vice president, given that he was ultimately forced to leave the race. He’ll be speaking Monday night.
Finally, going back to Rebecca Wininger, the woman I interviewed at the 2016 convention in Philadelphia after Hillary Clinton formally became her party’s nominee – I think we should not underestimate how much Harris’ ascent to become the first Black and Asian American woman presidential nominee will mean for many Americans tuning in.
Last week, at Harris’ first joint rally with her new running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, in Philadelphia, Ebony Davis, Betsy Klein and I interviewed a 66-year-old woman named Nancy Winkler.
She had tears in her eyes when she told us: “To have a woman president and have my grandchildren, who are biracial… to have them grow up and their first president that they know is biracial, like them, is just amazing to me.”
Jeff Zeleny: For better and worse, Chicago has such a rich history of hosting political conventions. What happens outside the convention hall will once again offer a glimpse into some of the divisions inside the Democratic Party and the challenges facing Harris in the months ahead. While pro-Palestinian protests are still expected, comparisons to 1968 may not be apt, but that will be something we are all watching closely.
The tensions between former President Barack Obama and Biden – along with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi – will also be worth keeping an eye on. There is considerable anger across the Biden family and close friends, which could manifest itself in some way, even as he passes the torch to Harris and the Democratic Party becomes hers.
