Atlanta Mayor Pans City’s Dnc Snub

Atlanta’s mayor slammed the Democratic National Committee and its chair on Thursday after it left his city off its short list of cities to host the party’s 2028 convention, accusing the organization of “abandoning Atlanta, abandoning the South, and once again abandoning Black voters.”

The DNC announced earlier in the day that Boston, Denver and Philadelphia were the three finalist cities being considered for the party’s next nominating convention, which will take place some 40 years since the Georgia capital last held the event in 1988.

The decision, Mayor Andre Dickens wrote in a letter obtained by POLITICO, is an example of the DNC being “unwilling to do the bare minimum to support the base of the party.”

“For the DNC not to even include Atlanta in the shortlist means that the DNC does not consider Atlanta or Georgia relevant to the past, present, or future of the Democratic Party,” Dickens wrote. “It seems that Ken Martin doesn’t even believe himself when he said that the road to the White House runs through the South.”

Adding insult to injury, Dickens' office only found out about the decision through an Associated Press article and was not given a heads-up about the move from the DNC, said Michael Smith, the mayor's deputy chief communications officer.

Georgia has become an increasingly important state for Democrats’ national ambitions — both this November and in 2028. The once-solidly red state has shifted purple in recent elections, and both of its senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are Democrats. The state sent its electoral votes to former President Joe Biden in 2020 and President Donald Trump in 2024.

Democrats have virtually no chance of flipping control of the Senate this fall if Ossoff loses to his Republican challenger, Rep. Mike Collins, on Election Day.

But the DNC is “blind to the fact that the South is the answer,” Dickens charged on Thursday. Republicans, meanwhile, will host their 2028 national convention in Houston.

The DNC did not provide comment on the Atlanta mayor’s criticism but pointed to its pick of South Carolina to lead the 2028 primary calendar, as well as recent DNC gatherings in New Orleans and Austin, as examples of its investment in the South.

“One party has chosen the South to host their convention, and the other has chosen the same region over and over again,” Dickens said. “This isn’t by accident. It’s an intentional choice.”