List of Democratic National Conventions


This is a list of Democratic National Conventions. These conventions are the presidential nominating conventions of the Democratic Party of the United States.

List of Democratic National Conventions

  • Conventions whose nominees won the subsequent presidential election are tinted in light blue.
  • Four other conventions — in 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016 — which nominated candidates who won the popular vote, but not the Electoral College, are tinted in pale yellow.
Footnotes
1 A resolution endorsing "the repeated nominations which he has received in various parts of the Union" was passed by the convention.


2 A resolution stating "that the convention deem it expedient at the present time not to choose between the individuals in nomination, but to leave the decision to their Republican fellow-citizens in the several states" was passed by the convention. Most Van Buren electors voted for Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky for the vice presidency; others voted for Littleton Waller Tazewell of Virginia and James K. Polk of Tennessee in the election of 1840.


3 Silas Wright of New York was first nominated and he declined the nomination.


4 Caleb Cushing resigned as permanent chair.


5 Douglas and Johnson were chosen as the candidates of the Front Street Theater convention after most of the Southern delegations walked out. The convention bolters soon formed their own convention, located at the Maryland Institute, also in Baltimore, on June 28, 1860. At their convention Caleb Cushing again served as permanent chair and John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky was nominated for the presidency and Joseph Lane of Oregon was nominated for the vice presidency.


6 Benjamin Fitzpatrick of Alabama was first nominated but he declined the nomination.


7 Greeley and B. Gratz Brown had already been endorsed by the Liberal Republican Party, meeting on May 1 in Cincinnati. A dissident group of Straight-Out Democrats, meeting in Louisville, Kentucky on September 3, nominated Charles O'Conor of New York for President and John Quincy Adams II of Massachusetts for Vice President, but both men declined the nomination.

8 "Gold" Democrats opposed to the Free Silver plank of the 1896 platform and to Wm J. Bryan's candidacy convened as the National Democratic Party in Indianapolis on September 2, and nominated John M. Palmer of Illinois for President and former Governor Simon Bolivar Buckner of Kentucky for Vice President.

9 Bryan was later nominated for President in St. Louis, together with Thomas E. Watson of Georgia for Vice President, by the National Silver Republican Party meeting on July 22, and by the People's Party meeting on July 25.

10 Breakaway delegations left the Philadelphia Convention for conventions of the Progressive and States Rights Democratic Parties. The Progressives, meeting on July 23, also in Philadelphia, nominated former Vice President Henry A. Wallace of Iowa for President and Senator Glen H. Taylor of Idaho for Vice President.
The States' Rights Democrats, meeting in Birmingham, Alabama on July 17, nominated Governors Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for President and Fielding Wright of Mississippi for Vice President.


11 Eagleton withdrew his candidacy after the convention and was replaced by Sargent Shriver of Maryland.


12 Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida was intended to be the Temporary Chair, but was substituted for Stephanie Rawlings-Blake by the Democratic National Committee in the wake of the Wasserman/DNC email leak scandal. Wasserman resigned as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee effective after the close of the convention.


13 Originally scheduled for July 13–16, and originally planned for the Fiserv Forum, but postponed and moved due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


14 Centered in Milwaukee, but many speeches and roll call responses were given remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keynote speakers