political conventions

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• SOURCE: The Hill
  6/1/2020
  

  The Memo: Trump Lags in Polls as Crises Press

  Historian Alan Lichtman, who predicted a Trump victory in 2016, says things look bad for his reelection prospects. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  5/27/2020
  

  President Trump’s Demand for a Full Arena Reveals that Party Conventions Still Matter

  by Laura Ellyn Smith

  The president's insistence on holding an in-person convention reflects not only his own love of large crowds but the significance of conventions as political events that let the voting public see the stakes of the election.

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• Ten Weird Facts About Presidential Conventions (With Pictures!)

  by HNN Staff

  FACTThe 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, was forced to delay for a day due to an approaching hurricane. This is the second consecutive GOP convention where the opening day was delayed due to an approaching hurricane; in 2008, the convention in St. Paul, Minnesota was delayed due to Hurricane Gustav making landfall in Louisiana. This is, however, the first instance where the threatened city is also the convention host.FACTThe first presidential nominating convention ever was held by the now hilariously-named Anti-Masonic Party in 1831. How bizarre was the Anti-Masonic Party? At one point they tried to convince Henry Clay to join, despite the fact that he was a Freemason himself.FACTThere hasn't been a floor fight for a major-party nomination since 1976, when Ronald Reagan battled Gerald Ford at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City. (This was also roughly the last time a political convention actually mattered.)FACT